Vengeful

Villains, Book 2

By: V. E. Schwab

Narrated by: Jeremy Arthur

Length: 12 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's Summary

A superpowered collision of extraordinary minds and vengeful intentions - number-one New York Times best-selling author V. E. Schwab returns with the thrilling follow-up to Vicious.  

Magneto and Professor X. Superman and Lex Luthor. Victor Vale and Eli Ever. Sydney and Serena Clarke. Great partnerships, now soured on the vine.   

But Marcella Riggins needs no one. Flush from her brush with death, she’s finally gained the control she’s always sought - and will use her newfound power to bring the city of Merit to its knees. She’ll do whatever it takes, collecting her own sidekicks and leveraging the two most infamous EOs, Victor Vale and Eli Ever, against each other once more.  

With Marcella's rise, new enmities create opportunity - and the stage of Merit City will once again be set for a final, terrible reckoning.     

One of Entertainment Weekly's "27 Female Authors Who Rule Sci-Fi and Fantasy Right Now".  

Villians:

• Vicious 
• Vengeful 
• "Warm Up" (short story)

©2018 Victoria Schwab (P)2018 Macmillan Audio

Annoying Narrator

The narrator uses this whimsy, wavering voices for ALL the women in this book. ANNOYING!

didn't love as much as Vicious

In many ways I LOVED this. But, I have to say that there were A LOT of time jumps in this... like every chapter was bouncing around in different timelines for different characters... like zero parts of this book were linear. In audio format that was really hard to follow, and I just gave up on keeping straight timelines in my head I could only be like "ok this is happening a long time ago" or "ok this is semi recent" but remembering what was 2 years ago or 4 years ago or 5 years ago for like 6 different character's timelines was just impossible. So, I'm not sure if that would be easier in physical copy, but if that is important to you as a reader then be aware.

Everyone is a jerk

Am I supposed to be rooting for Victor Vale? He sucks. He broods and complains. And he becomes at least as bad as Eli from book one. He poses the world's biggest false dichotomy--it's us or them-- to justify doing horrible stuff. So, everyone goes on their way doing terrible things and complaining the whole time. The ladies were interesting because they simply embraced their powers and started living as out and out villains, which was refreshing. But overall, this book didn't satisfy because there's no one to really care about.

Top Tier!

Schwab is one of my favorite authors, and this book showcases many of the reasons for that status. Each character is well formed and believable, and the story moves organically. The narrator does a great job with this audio book, too

The Villains saga continues and Danger swells

I had the pleasure of completing this book and Vicious back to back and was thoroughly enthralled. This book expands the cast of EOs roaming the streets of Merritt. Their motivations and desire to find meaningful, friendship, family, or power lead them down roads that intersect. This long awaited book was well worth the wait. Thank you V.E.

Great Story in Spite of Mediocre Character Voices

Amazing part 2! I just wish I wasn't so unimpressed with the narrator's female character voices.

Not quite sure who has died and who is still alive

This was a good book. I was a little confused at the end by not knowing for sure just who was still living and who had died. We had many of the same characters from the first book in the series, Vicious, back again. But there were also some awesome new characters. One big thing in this book was we got a much closer look at Eli’s early life and what it was that made him like he is. Also, we discover that the policeman from the first book has founded an institute dedicated to capturing all the Eos they can find. His idea is that he wants to find some way to put them to use in some positive way – law enforcement or government spying or something, rather than killing them off like the objective seemed to be in the first book. However, his organization – they call themselves EON – is trying to do extensive research on the EOs, and there is this one scientist who is doing horrible, punishing things to Eli, who is their prize captive, trying to find out what his limits are. It looks as if he doesn’t have any. I didn’t like Eli much to begin with and didn’t want to have to feel all sorry for him, which between the early child abuse he suffered and this later torture you almost have to. The director of EON, when he finds out about the extent of the abuse, fires the scientist, who by this time is as crazy as everybody else in the place, but he just goes into hiding waiting for somebody else to experiment on. Victor, meanwhile, has developed a problem of dying repeatedly and then coming back to life. Another big chunk of the book is devoted to his efforts to find some sort of cure for this condition. His repeated failures are depressing – to him, to Sydney, who blames herself for the problem, and to us. Aside from them, the best characters were two of the new ones. There is Marcella, who is sort of the headliner for this book. She is the wife of a Mafia-type who suddenly decides to do away with her. When she is brought back to life her superpower is ruining things. (In some ways, the best part of this series is all the different superpowers everybody has). She manages to ruin her husband and all his friends, and also his enemies. Then she sets out planning to ruin the rest of the city. It is obvious that she is so dangerous she has to be stopped, but I’m sort of sorry that she gets taken out before she reveals what it is she has planned for all the powerful people in the city. Inquiring minds want to know… My favorite character, though, is June. Her superpower is two-part. First, she can look like anybody (non-EO) she has touched at will. And second, if she is killed while looking like somebody else (which she always looks like somebody else now), it is not her but the person she looks like who is killed. So, for all love, don’t shoot her while she looks like you! June befriends Sydney and seems to want to look out after her. But since much of June’s time in this book is spent being one of Marcella’s henchpeople, most of their communication is by text. In the end, when everything descends into chaos and Sydney’s cell phone has to be replaced and she and Mitch leave town, June can no longer reach her. I was sort of hoping that she would join Victor’s group and sort of replace Serena for Sydney, but that didn’t happen. Maybe in the next book?

i need more

this was amazing. individual characters with personal motives. an inventive power system. Give more pls

Solid but not great

Overall the second installment is even better than the first. New characters were great additions and your leaves itself open for furthering the story. definitely recommend it.

Good change of narrators

I'm enjoying this series more than the shades of magic series. I'm curious on if this is just a duology or if the author plans to write more books set in this world, it seems like there could be quite a few more stories to tell. The change of narrators from the first book to this book was much appreciated. Jeremy Arthur was a much better narrator then the one used for the first book.

Amazing book- good listen!!

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this- I read along with the book and took over reading in sections. The book was an easy 5 stars for me- the characters were amazing and I loved every second following them! The narrator embodied the characters amazingly and made for a great listen. The only thing with the narrator was that his female voice was a little irritating as it sounded a little too put on- but that’s understandable being a male narrator. I mainly just read the chapters that were in a woman’s perspective so it wasn’t too big of a deal.

Entertaining Story

I enjoyed this book a lot. Good story however not very original. Would recommend it.

Simply amazing

This book, to me, is perfection. I very rarely give five stars, but V.E. Schwab's second installment of the Villains saga certainly deserves each and every one. Intricate plots that work out like clockwork, driven by a very-dark-grey kind of hero and an equally compelling cast of thoroughly fleshed out characters, are exactly my cup of tea. V.E. Schwab's style is maturely polished and well balanced, yet it sounds fresh, immediate. Her voice is sharp and clear. This story drags you in and quickly becomes an addiction. Please, Ms. Schwab... show us more about this cruel, breathtaking universe. We need more of your Villains.