If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio
““Actors are by nature volatile—alchemic creatures composed of incendiary elements, emotion and ego and envy. Heat them up, stir them together, and sometimes you get gold. Sometimes disaster.””
Synopsis
“Oliver Marks has just served ten years in jail - for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he's released, he's greeted by the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened a decade ago.
As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.”
Review
I’ll start by saying that If We Were Villains was not enjoyable for me, and I was so relieved once I finally finished it. Initially, the premise excited me, and I thought it would be a good read to start off the spooky season (I start celebrating early). It certainly has a gothic feel with dark academia vibes. Scenes within the story are also heavily dramatized, especially since the characters are serious students studying theater, which naturally leads to a lot of competition and built-up turmoil. While the style or format of the book is divided into Acts and Scenes, the plot is unraveled through the use of Shakespeare’s plays. Essentially, the characters often repeat lines from plays such as Hamlet and King Lear in a way that fits into the story's central conflict.
Photo by Clark Young on Unsplash
Many aspects of the story turned me off, most notably the characters. As someone who prefers character-driven stories, this novel was dry in the character development department. I wanted to like Oliver since he is the protagonist, but no one from the leading friend group had clear motives for their actions. For example, I had difficulty figuring out why Richard, “the tyrant,” was always so angry. To be fair, he was a narcissist, but the problem was that no apparent motive or incident could have paralleled his severely violent outbursts. Even though he was having issues in his relationship with Meredith, the consequences of his aggression still felt overblown. Richard seemed to have taken a complete 180 in a short span of time, which I found unbelievable even within the theatrical frame of the story. I also did not find everyone else’s reactions to the violence convincing, and the dynamics within the friend group felt underdeveloped, including within Oliver’s relationship with James and Meredith.
The writing style wasn’t my favorite either, and the continued use of Shakespearean quotes became tiresome. I get it; the author studied Shakespeare, but it was a little too much for me, especially when the characters felt too juvenile for my liking. It is easy to see that these theater students stand in for certain tropes inherent within Shakespeare’s plays (hero, tyrant, femme fatale, etc.). Still, their individuality didn’t stand out, so their motives seemed unfocused. The author could have developed the characters further to make the story more convincing, but the arrangement of chapters into Acts and Scenes was on point. If anything, the most exciting aspect of the novel was the emphasis on drama and theater; I just wish the characters felt real enough to carry through this thespian tragedy.
Have you read If We Were Villains? What did you think? Do you think it’s worth the hype? Let me know down below!