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Vicious
432 pages
A razor-sharp, electric deconstruction of superheroes where the line between hero and villain is obliterated by ambition and revenge.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like watching a storm roll in, dark, electric, and impossible to look away from. It is a razor-sharp exploration of ambition and obsession, wrapped in a gritty, cinematic aesthetic that reads like a comic book stripped of its moral compass. The narrative hurtles forward, effortlessly weaving between a toxic college friendship and a cold-blooded present-day rivalry, keeping the tension coiled tight. The prose is sleek and calculating, perfectly mirroring its morally bankrupt protagonists. You are not here to root for the good guy; you are here to watch two brilliant, broken minds tear each other apart. It will utterly delight fans of dark academia, antiheroes, and anyone who prefers their caped crusaders with a heavy dose of villainy.
- Mood
- gritty
- tense
- brooding
- electric
- cinematic
- Tone
- cynical
- sharp
- calculating
- detached
- Pace
- propulsive
- Themes
- moral ambiguity · toxic friendship · ambition and hubris · obsession and revenge · twisted found family
- The writing
- Sleek, cinematic, and razor-sharp, delivering punchy chapters that read like a dark graphic novel.
- The arc
- A chilling descent into obsessive rivalry that culminates in a thrilling, morally bankrupt showdown.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave morally gray antiheroes, toxic academic rivalries, and superhero tropes turned completely inside out.
Content notes
- graphic violence
- murder
- animal death
- self-harm
- torture
About the book
A masterful tale of ambition, jealousy, desire, and superpowers.
Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.
Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?
In Vicious, V. E. Schwab brings to life a gritty comic-book-style world in vivid prose: a world where gaining superpowers doesn't automatically lead to heroism, and a time when allegiances are called into question.
Description from Open Library.
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