Review: Vengeful

General Information

Title: Vengeful

Author: V. E. Schwab

Series: Villains #2

Pages: 478

Publisher: Tor Books

ISBN: 9780765387523

My rating: ★★★★½☆

Vengeful is the sequel to Vicious. Spoilers for book #1 ahead.

I read Vicious some months back and enjoyed it a lot, but something felt off. But wow, I really loved this sequel!

Vengeful is both a continuation of the first book and a whole new story. It takes place 5 years after the events of Vicious, but it's told mostly in retrospect which allows us to live through these 5 years with the characters, which brings me staright into my review!

We are reunited with Victor and his gang whom I've come to love a lot. Victor is just such an interesting character! He is dark, kind of mysterious, and powerful - and he knows it. You don't mess with Victor Vale. He's the guy you love to hate. And Mitch and Sydney are simply precious! They really grew on me in the first book already and I was so happy to have them back!
We meet Eli again too, although he's in a very different place: he's a prisoner at EON, a facility that deals with (=locks up and, if neccessary, neutralizes) superpowered people. But as we know Eli, he wouldn't be himself if he let that stop him... I don't really like him because of a lot of awful things he did back in Vicious, but what they did to him here was horrible. Nobody deserves this.

There are a bunch of new characters too. At first I found it a bit difficult to make sense of their role within the bigger story, but everything came together very well. And can I just say Marcella fascinated me - damn, what a woman! She's got her priorities straight, that's for certain. Another character you shouldn't mess with.

The story is mostly told in retrospect, like it already was the case in Vicious. The chapter titles indicate how far back the plot takes us, which ranges from 4 years to just a few days. Only this time I found it much easier to put everything together because I was already used to this style. And all the different plotlines came together really nicely! I also liked the writing style better than in book one, it somehow felt more fluent this time.

And again the themes couldn't have been more up my alley: Vengeful deals with questions such as whether superpowered people are still humans (actually the whole topic is kind of similar to the role of the mutants in the X-Men franchise, but not in a bad way - it's a very interesting and important aspect to think about). It further deals with the (de)construction of a society. It's a huge power play and a revenge story and I just can't say no to all the ethical questions that come with it!

The ending was satisfying because it felt so fitting. Certain characters get what they deserve, others just follow their own path... I really liked it!
I just flew through this book and I loved it! I loved how dark and twisted everything and everyone was, it made for a really exciting and different reading experience. Recommended!!

Please keep in mind that these are adult books. Trigger warnings: death, murder, blood, human experiments