By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. and i should have known not to get so attached, as this story follows the form of a true shakespearean tragedy. Imagine having all your own thoughts and feelings tangled up with all the thoughts and feelings of a whole other person. Wren - Richard’s cousin, relaxed and moderate, usually trying to be the balance between Richard and the rest of the group. The question is so unlikely, so nonsensical coming from such a sensible man, that I can’t suppress a smile.

If We Were Villains: The sensational TikTok Book Club pick

Rio did an excellent job at showing his abusive behaviour toward his peers and how he was the disrupter of peace within the group. 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.Rio is an author, but before she was an author she was an actor, and before she was an actor she was just a word nerd whose best friends were books. Oliver is for sure the main character, and this book starts out with him getting out of prison ten years after the events of that frightful night. act one may have been a bit slow but as the plot started rolling, so did my insides because by the end of the book i felt sick and nauseous all the same. The characters almost 'become' their parts, making it hard to determine where their acting and their actual personality begins and ends. Given the fact, that he has been friends with these people for over three years and has formed close bonds to them, I found it weird that the shift in his character between their third and fourth year was never elaborated on.

If We Were Villains - Wikipedia

One thing I really liked was how the characters typecasts in terms of Shakespeare plays both informed and distorted their characterisation.But one night their life completely changes when they all come together on a decision that alters their fate. However, as the story went on I found it to become quite predictable, and many of the elements from the beginning started to wear on me as a reader. However, the situation changes at the annual Halloween performance, a select few scenes from Macbeth fourth year students traditionally perform each year. He is finally willing to confront his past and tell the truth of what really happened ten years ago. The passage is obscure but leaves open the possibility that James, whose body was never found, may still be alive.

If We Were Villains: The sensational TikTok Book Club pick If We Were Villains: The sensational TikTok Book Club pick

A fascinating, unorthodox take on rivalry, friendship, and truth, If We Were Villains will draw readers in and leave them pondering the weight of our biggest actions and their consequences. Everything was a bit redundant including the decision by the author to include so much of Shakespeare's text (literally whole passages were copied from his work and it became a drag to read, even when the texts were reflective of the characters' internal monologues—clever at first but the effect wears off). I loved the way the author translated the contemporary idolisation of Shakespeare into something so dark and twisted.

After all, Shakespeare is poetry—most of it, anyway— and there’s a certain mathematical pattern to poetry, isn’t there?