If We Were Villains | M.L.Rio | Dark Academia Review
If We Were Villains is an electrifying story that I read because I was a theatre kid at school and had a bit of a strange obsession with the characters I was playing. This is one of those novels that one will read in their lives that can only truly be understood by someone who is connected to the events of the novel in some way. Now, of course I am not suggesting that I took part in the kind of heinous activity depicted in this novel, but the obsession with the character you are given, the jealousy when someone else gets the part you desperately wanted, those feelings I understand all too well.
If We Were Villains tells the story of a group of drama students at a prestigious art college who trundle through their schooling being given their stereotypical roles in each Shakespeare production that they put on. Until one production when everything is turned, quite literally, on its head. Distressed and obsessed with putting on the best show of their lives, the students succumb to the pressure and give in to their wildest desires.
As soon as I began reading this novel I had the strange feeling that I was being persuaded to do something that I didn’t really want to do. The language is so decadent and the atmosphere so rich that I felt comfortable reading; too comfortable. Rio does an excellent job of relaxing the reader, lulling them into a false sense of security with her lucious writing style. This only serves to make the events more shocking when they do finally hit.
That’s not to say that the events are by any means slow. They are the exact opposite. Something seems to be happening at every turn of the page which kept me hooked in the story right up until the final pages. The switching between present and past exaggerated the suspense and pushed me deeper into the labyrinths of the novel, desperate to find out what exactly had happened to these college students.
The character of Oliver is our narrator, and he is very unreliable. We are led to believe that he has done nothing wrong, but unlike Richard in ‘TheSecret History’ there is nothing at all innocent about Oliver. He seems just as involved as everyone else. Rio characterises all her charctaers extrememly well, presetning the intenstity of being a teeneager and young adult perfectly. The tensions and emoitons flowing between them are depcited with enough intenstiy so as to seem vivid, but not tto much so as to appear overdone.
The realism in the novel also serves to deepen the narrative and make the novel feel even rawer and more defined. By the time I got to the end I felt as though I had been torn in two, but I was also sure that I would do it all over again soon!
Overall, this novel is near to perfect. The only complaint I have is that its far too short! Reading this story feels like delving deep into a world of decadence and intensity and emotion. It is the perfect ode to being a teenager and all the dangerous and beautiful things that come alongside that.
