Rating: 5 out of 5

Genre: Fiction, Mystery/Thriller, Diverse, 5 Stars

People who should read this: If you love character based stories with a strong plot, Shakespeare, V. E. Schwab, and dark seedy stories with a hot slow burn. 

“We had, like seven siblings, spent so much time together that we had seen the best and the worst of one another and were unimpressed by either.”

Ahhhhhhhh….

Have you ever read a story and sunk into its deep, dark corners, losing all sense of the world outside its pages? Been so consumed that you couldn’t stop until the last word was devoured?

Welcome to If We Were Villains. 

My favorite parts - can I really pick one - were the quiet moments. Schwab pulled them off in Vicious and now Rio has done the same. These moments can take a reader deeper, layering walls thick  with story and character, and sucking them in so far there’s no hope in putting the book down. I felt like I breathed the story. Knew the characters as if they were my own friends. Take the bathroom scene between James and Oliver… There’s nothing kinky about it. What really happens? In honesty, nothing. They talk about their lives, the decisions made that night, but it’s so compelling. An award winning moment. 

But for these scenes to feel so dynamic, the author has to have the gift of creating the quiet moments. Well Rio does.She knew what descriptions to highlight. She knew how to choreograph the characters - all without slowing down the moment. Her words didn’t muddy the story. I never felt like I was reading words, though I wanted to focus on the words. Hopefully, I absorbed all the lessons so I can try and become this good later. Either that, or I need to slate this for a reread - and quickly. 

Ok….

Enough fangirling, but I hope I’ve already convinced you to read this book. V. E. Schwab gave it five stars. That should be enough of a reason.

“The future is wide and wild and full of promise, but it is precarious, too. Seize on every opportunity that comes your way and cling to it, lest it be washed back out.” 

If We Were Villains is honestly the story for everyone. It’s character driven with a slow burning plot - you’ll want to keep turning the page. The reveals are done in a deliberate fashion that keep you guessing. I thought I’d figured out a part - and I did in the end - but the way Rio kept mixing things up, I questioned my deduction from the start. Not a lot of authors have been able to keep me second guessing for so long. I ended up being confirmed when everyone else probably saw the truth.

Now, if you don’t like Shakespeare you might struggle a tiny bit. I’m not a fan of his and haven’t read one single play, but I still enjoyed the book. I just skipped over the longer monologues. So don’t let it stop you. 

“He’d never been in my house and I was self-conscious, embarrassed by it. I was painfully aware of the fact that we didn’t have enough books.” 

My only complaint comes with the ending. After all the tension and suspense, the ending fell flat. Boom done… smoking gun was over here. The ending makes sense, in a way. All signs pointed that direction, but I wanted more. It wasn’t rushed either. It was what it was. 

Some books enter your life at the moment you were meant to read them. I’ve been picking up and putting this book down for months - my friend is probably dying for her copy back. I’ve read the first two chapters five times. But the moment I actually read it through was meant to be. Might stay in my top five books of the year… that is, until I read some more Schwab and Kristoff. 

Happy Reading

Love Kait

Reading Challenge: 65/100