V. E. Schwab’s Vengeful is the second book in the Villains series. The book takes place five years after the events of Vicious, and, like its processor, it fills in the gaps between the past and present. At the end of Vicious, Sydney Clarke revived Victor Vale, returning his power and his life. Unfortunately, like every other EO she revives, something is wrong with Victor, so together with Mitch Turner, the trio attempts to find a cure. Around the same time Victor died, Eliot Cardale (Eli Ever) was arrested and incarcerated. He is currently unaware that Victor is alive, but that will soon change. Marcella Riggins is the newest EO to take center stage. With frightening powers and a lust for vengeance, she is determined to take control of the city of Merit.
Unlike the previous book, Vengeful incorporates a wide variety of independent lead character and a plethora of perspectives. However, for the sake of consistency, Victor Vale and Eli Ever are the only characters that will receive a detailed description.
Almost nothing about Victor changes between books. One of the first things readers learned about Victor is that he is ruthlessly driven. He will accomplish any goal he sets his mind to with merciless efficiency. In Vicious, his singular goal was to torture Eli, something he achieved with sadistic glee. Although the pursuit of this goal left one cop dead, this dark edge to his determination was easy to overlook as it did not compare to the more than fifty innocent lives Eli claimed in the decade he was free. However, this book makes it impossible to deny his ruthlessness. In pursuit of his goals, Victor kills many EOs, raising questions about the dark antihero most readers have come to love and making it harder to see him as the lesser of two evils. However his dark nature is often juxtaposed against his begrudging but obvious compassion for both Mitch and Sydney. Now more than ever, Victor truly a morally grey protagonist and it up to readers to decide if his motives justify the extreme actions he often takes.
Like Victor, Eliot Cardale also does not change over the course of the book. Much of his time is spent in captivity so while there is nothing he can physically do in the present to change audience attitudes towards him, readers can learn more about his past. While this immortal monster spends his imprisonment contemplating his life, readers get a deep look into his extremely troubled past. They get to see the situations that shaped him into the broken person that he is, and the chance to understand how deep his psychological damage goes. With this new information, readers must reexamine previous views of this psychopath and decide for themselves if the past can justify heinous acts in the present.
Vengeful is another great book by V.E. Schwab. The pacing in this book was rarely fast, instead choosing to be slow and methodical allowing for a compelling plot and an intricate storyline.
Like Vicious, Vengeful toggled between multiple perspectives, each one well written, and interesting, but some more appealing than others. I personally was much more invested in Victor, Sydney and Mitch than any other character in the ensemble. Their chapters were full of heartfelt emotions both happy and sad. This makeshift family of two fathers and an adoptive daughter had a very interesting dynamic, but it was easy to see that they all deeply cared for each other (even if Victor had very cold ways of showing it). This trio was the only real spot of positive emotions in the entire story, making them far more compelling than all the other characters.
While I did find the other perspectives less compelling, that does not make them any less interesting. Marcella’s chapters were full of rage, vengeance, and pride, while Eli’s could be heartbreakingly sad or infuriating.
The additional perspectives also bring some much needed female representation to the story. In Vicious, the two powerful female characters could be perceived as sidekicks since they aligned themselves with one of the two male leads instead of having their own drive and explicit goal. In Vengeful, there were two more powerful female characters completely independent of Victor and Eli. These characters had their own motives and goals, making them leaders in their own right. Reader can choose to love or hate these characters, however they cannot deny that they are powerful.
While Vengeful was a good book in its own right, it doesn’t reach the bar set by Vicious. As it was meant to be a standalone book, Vicious was a beautifully written and well contained story. It had a purpose and it fulfilled it with intriguing moral ambiguity and a strong cast. Vengeful felt a lot like an extended epilogue. It was wonderful finding out what happened to these characters after the events of the previous book and spending more time learning about them, however, this book felt superfluous and unnecessary. It wasn’t a part of the story that needed to be told and the ending was not particularly satisfying. While this book did a better job of emphasizing the moral ambiguity of all characters, it was ultimately missing something substantial, making it a little disappointing compared to the masterpiece that was Vicious.
I give this 478 page book 4.5 stars.
Villains
In a world much like our own, people with supernatural abilities began to emerge. These ExtraOrdinary people known as EOs. Two young college students decide to attempt to obtain such powers themselves and their actions leave a trail of bodies in their wake.