Vicious (Review)

Vicious had all the makings of a book I should have loved; characters you love to hate, dark plots, and urban fantasy elements. The premise is amazing and vaguely Frankenstein; two university students embark on a research mission to create superhumans and become archenemies in the process.

“Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.”

Rule of Cool (term): common in conversations about movie tropes, the idea that the suspension of disbelief by an audience is proportional to how cool it appears to be.

For example, we accept characters punching through walls without breaking their hands, and diving off cliffs without injury because its cool enough to be excused…(and the other option is gore-y and gross).

What this book succeeded at was definitely an air of coolness. But at what cost?

The structure of this story is chaotic, to say the least. There are multiple timelines, which is all well and good, except that they jump around so much that it’s hard to follow and things end up being muddled and repetitive. 

The knotted-up timelines are (a bit obviously) attempting to hide plot holes and create a false sense of suspense, dancing around certain pivotal moments and skipping instead to another timeline in order to have cliffhanger chapter endings rather than following a more natural progression of events. The story hinges on readers remaining engaged as we basically wait around for three-hundred pages or so for the two main characters to meet in the present day, which ends up feeling postponed for so long that it’s hard not to lose interest. 

I can think of at least a dozen other ways that this book could have been structured and all of them better and more natural, with more worldbuilding, suspense, and characterization…all of which are lacking in the current version.

“Like everything was real, but nothing mattered.”

It was very difficult for me to feel invested in these characters, not just because they’re meant to be unlikeable, but because even those who are trying to be quirky and unique are so tropey and cliche that I’ve spotted them before in many many YA books (although, this book is supposedly adult…even if it doesn’t exactly read that way…).  Even if I could have accepted their unoriginality, none of their motivations seemed to make sense despite the fact that everyone is supposed to be incredibly intelligent, making it difficult to understand and empathize with their actions. 

There was a glimmer at the beginning and at the end, where I saw what this story could have been…where the intrigue was there and I could see how smart Victor was instead of just being told. But it’s overshadowed by the whole mess in the middle. For a book filled with violence, death, betrayal, and superpowers…I was surprisingly bored. 

I rated Vicious 3 out of 5 stars. Fans of other superhero books might still enjoy this one…but for me, I was disappointed, especially after all the hype I’d heard surrounding it. I doubt I’ll continue on with the series. 

Interested in this book? You can read Vicious for free with a trial of Scribd.