If We Were Villains: a book review
Or, the power of environmental storytelling, amazing characterization, theatrics and what it does to a STEM student with a passion for the arts
A/N: This is my first time writing a book review, and I decided to make up a little formula for myself to follow for the rest of my reviews. Truthfully, IWWV is not my first book, but it has defintiely inspired me enough to write something for it that isnât fanfiction so here it is. Feel free to share your thoughts and bring up discussions, as this book is dear to me in many ways and it deserves to be talked about. Do note all of this is my opinion and that is all it will ever be. Hope you enjoy this review/semi-analysis of IWWV that I am less than qualified to talk about, but that is the beauty of self-expression. Please be warned of spoilers which will be marked as to where they Start.Â
How I was Introduced to the Book
I first learned of the book through booktok. And I know the implications of that statement and the reputation of booktok in the bookish community. I, myself, donât think too highly of booktok (as it is where all the colleen hoover fans worm about), but I have to admit that it is, by far, one of the best avenues to discover authors and books, no matter the romanticization of reading as a hobby or the misinterpretation of these books. Truthfully, without booktok, I would not have asked my friend to buy me a copy of If We Were Villains for my birthday and I wouldnât be enamoured by its narrations and characters as I am right now. There was a specific tiktoker that I followed for the fact that they have read a lot of dark academia books â which is a genre that Iâm getting into right now! If We Were Villains was introduced to me as a really great book with a lot of twists and turns, and I went into it with that expectation.
The Book Itself in My Own Words
Imagine that one picture that comes up whenever you search âdark academia aestheticâ on pinterest. There is a manor at the far end of the photo, distant and castle-like. Vines and greenery cling to it as if it were the old cobblestone shrine of a forest God and its windows are hauntingly grey with dust as if it were lived in by no one except ghosts. You are only outside looking in, and there is no scene you can manage from the manor. What you can observe, however is a lake. It reflects the greyish bluish white sky above it and it does not move against the life, the nature that surrounds it. It is ever present and everlastingly still; ultimately very boring to the people who spare it a glance, but go beyond depths you and I can comprehend or imagine. Think of that image, but in book form. Oh and add several other complicated things in it too, just for flavor.
If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio is a hauntingly, tragic mystery about 7 friends who made the mistake of being gay theatre kids. Itâs the found family trope in reverse as you watch as their life fall apart in the incident of a murder that no one is really sure who did. We follow Oliver Marks, essentially the main character and the narrator of the story as he describes what his life is like and how itâs about to be ruined because some guy was too petty to accept that he isnât always the star of the show. Watch the 6 of them go through the motion, pretending everything is fine and that theyâre all not mentally ill in some way while quoting shakespeare that no normal person does.Â
As sarcastic as I sound, it is genuinely a wonderful, captivating story about grief, friendship and art. Everything is so complicated (in a good way) and youâre not really sure what to feel about all of it, but at the same time, you stay for the ride because the feelings are worth it, just to see this show to the end just so these characters can reach their epilogue finally. The way I would describe it is imagine all those reading assignments and book reports you had to do in your english class about a sonnet or play, then mix it with all the gay fanfiction one would read in the witching hours of 3 am as you sob quietly to yourself because you know your ship will never be canon. It is a culmination of these two things, and itâs awesome.Â
First Impressions/Last Impressions
I struggled with getting through Act I of IWWV. And I do genuinely believe that this was not at all the fault of the author or the story as the set up was interesting and mysterious and curious enough for me to get hooked. It just so happened that the fish was uninterested and busy with other things that I did not get into immediately as I would have hoped. Despite this â and after several months of not reading â I managed to pick up the book again and return to where I left off.
Perhaps it was the fact that there was a large gap of me not reading IWWV and then the sudden bolt of me reading it religious explains why I found the first parts of IWWV quite slow. I do recognize this as a part of the set up and exposition of the book and was entirely necessary for the emotional impact that it would give me by the end, but prowling through those first few chapters was hard as someone with a short attention span and have several hobbies aside from reading and writing.Â
But now, after almost a year of trying to finish this book properly, I have to say that I am wrecked and I will never be the same again. I thought I was going to hate the endng, truthfully, as its implications was bleak and somehow, undermines the efforts of its characters. But, the epilogue had me pleasantly surprised and relieved, that I would have to say that the ending was exactly my cup of tea. Iâm still not sure on where I stand with happy endings or tragic endings, but I do in fact love open endings â endings left to interpretation, the kinds that will make you tear your hair out because where is the rest of it? Why is the book just- done? And here is where fanfiction comes to play, my friend.Â
The journey has been a journey, and I definitely have to say that I have learned a lot from this book and that it was easy to fall in love with the book despite the rough beginning.Â
How I fell in Love with It
The atmosphere IWWV gave me which was extremely immersive and can only be described as delightfully haunting. It is peak gray â and gay â atmosphere that I really enjoyed as it felt like the right amount of theatrics to not be too dramatic and satirical. Something also surprising is the fact that it is oddly humorous despite being a book about murder, shakespeare and what makes a tragedy. Actually, considering it is inspired by shakespeare, the humorous aspect is not so surprising if you take into account some shakespeare being pretty absurd as it is. The unironic things these characters do like randomly quote shakespeare out of nowhere is so pretentiously funny, but also contributes well to what the book is going for.Â
As unnatural as that would be for like a normal person, because Oliver and his friends are so deep into the shakespeare of their classes, they make it feel natural and you get used to that as the story progresses. Oliver had a really good justification for this which he explains to Colbourne in a way that I truly resonate with. This book, as well as the characters, are so in love with Shakespeareâs words that itâs hard to not find yourself enamoured by it to. I love the way they describe taking art like this as I feel, as an artist and creative, that this is an artistâs ulttimate purpose. To capture the things that cannot be said properly through ordinary words, and to encapsulate those moments of heightened emotion and feeling. Any piece of art is an attempt to reanimate emotion, and we use art to deliver those emotions that we, ourselves, cannot fully comprehend.Â
This is what I love about this book, aside from its brilliant storytelling and interesting and raw characters. It feels like it was made with the intention of appreciation for art, and I really respect that as art means so much to me. This book is art and it is about art as much as it is about this specific friend group dealing with whatever just happened, and I really really love and appreciate that about this book.Â
Strong Points/What I learned from It as a Writer
IWWV is genuinely a master class in environmental storytelling. The Castle, where everyone stays at during their time in Dellecher is the most effective use of environment Iâve seen in a book (which Iâm sure thereâs more, I just havenât read it yet in which I will at some point). The way the castle has a place for everyone, and the scene wherein Oliver is seen cleaning the different rooms of the Castle goes to show the amount of detail the author puts into each little cranny of their descriptions of the Castle. One specific detail I remember was in Richardâs room where a chess board was described with one horseman toppled over and another missing. I may be tweaking, but that might just imply something about story. Aside from the environments, IWWV also makes good use of its inspiration material which is shakespeare.
I definitely should have gone into IWWV with some knowledge of shakespeare and I would encourage anyone who wish to read IWWV to read at least one shakespear book, because I didnt and I am incredible lost on how IWWV uses those narratives of Shakespeareâs plays to reference its own tragedy and characters and I am extremely upset that I didnât get to experience that other narrative of the what the play were trying to tell the reader. But of course, you donât have to have a background in theatre or shakespeare to read IWWV. It would extremely as they constantly quote shakespeare and if you donât know what those quotes mean, you will get lost at some point, but you can manage through it (as I said, the book does well with these quotes that it starts feeling natural enough that you, too, would start to make sense of these quotes even if you would struggle at first). But, from what I have heard from people who have read the book and Shakespeare, the plays do reference and foreshadow the story within IWWV.Â
The play Ceasar directly reference how Richard is going to die and whoâs going to kill him. Like Richard is the modern Julias Ceasar, he is someone who has caused tyranny in their group of friends and provoked James to hit him on the head which led to his friends eventually leaving him for dead. I still struggle sometimes with that betrayal because in truth, Richard was their friend for 3 years and then theyâre just gonna throw him away like that? I think itâs just how I view friendship, but to be fair I donât like Richard enough to be angry that he died. And thatâs a good way of utilizing source material! Because who killed Ceasar if not his most intimate of friends.Â
This is kind of like Chekhovâs gun in a way except weâre talking about multiple guns and youâre in a gun shop and the fact that the guns are constantly being fired. Everytime the environment is being described, it doesnât get boring or go into super great detail. Iâm always seated for those descriptions of the environment because at some point one very specific detail will mean something to the story more than you expect it would. Otherwise, it contributes to the atmosphere and helps you feel incredibly immersive. I think much of what I read are heavily character-driven (which isnât a bad thing!) and IWWV is also heavily character-driven in terms of plot, but it uses its environment well. Like it exists and isnât just an extension of the actors themselves, but it doesnât just exist as a setting, it exists as a plot device. A carefully crafted set for a performance. IWWV was a wonderful case study for me to be able to spot those little details in the environment and try my hand in interpreting what they mean, like a detective looking for clues â which is very fitting!
Characters and characterization was also very good in IWWV. Every character was equally flawed and all of their actions warrant a âWhat the actual fuck?â from me. The amazing thing about IWWV is that despite its title, none of these characters are bad people, just very flawed with poor decision-making skills. Even Richard, I would argue, is still a gray character despite being an asshole! It was entirely his fault for becoming needlessly petty and aggressive towards his friends, but I donât really think that undermines their 3 years of friendship together. I genuinely believe that Richard was just a guy with a big ego that was too fragile for his own good and he did really dumb and shitty stuff about that. He isnât your 2D Villain, because his actions were triggered by the event of something â being casted as someone that wasnât the main focus of the play. And his friends and the reader have in their every right to be angry at Richard for the shit heâs done, but you have to admit he wasnât always like that. He changed and that is the most admirable thing about the character writing in IWWV.
Everyone is very dynamic, but not too drastic for it to be jarring. They fit well together despite having contrasting personalities and all of them have something going on in terms of their personal life. Itâs a shame we donât exactly see ther perspectives as we are limited to Oliverâs narration, but we do get glimpses of it and I believe that is enough for the characters to feel real. My favorite character, Filippa, is the most mysterious one from the group in terms of backstory, but I know enough that she is willing to do everything â even hide a murder â just to protect her friends, her family, probably because she doesnât have one of her own in more ways than one. And I got that from a single line that she said to Oliver when he asked why she hid the fact James did it.Â
âYou all were the only family I had. Iâd have killed Richard myself if I thought it would keep the rest of you safe. [...] I was terrified youâd do exactly what you did.â
Each main character of IWWV have their own tragedy to their character which is rooted upon the âtypeâ of character they are in the beginning of the story. They all both defy and fit perfectly in their own roles in the narrative and that is their tragedy. Oliver is the sidekick who became the center of attention by his arrest, James is a hero who murdered a friend, Richard is a dead tyrant, Meredith is a temptress who wishes she was seen as anything but, Wren is the broken and frankly, no longer as innocent as she ought to be ingenue, and Alexander is the villain with good intentions. Filippa is the curious case as she does not have set role, this does not excuse her from being tragic, but it does makes sense how she is the only able to stay relatively stable throughout the story. In the very beginning we were already told of what tragedy these characters would have and it is all connected to their role in a stereotypical narrative, how they are type-casted in their plays.
I would go into each of the characters and their own personal tragedies and flaws, but that would be really long, so I wonât. But these characters and the play on the type-casting of these actors are perfectly executed. I would like to cite Jamesâ arc for this as he is described as being the hero, but slowly, as we see how he and everyone else copes with Richardâs death and how he gets casted into the villain role, we saw how this changes him and how his archetype of being the hero slowly crumbles to make way for a darker James filled with immense amount of guilt that only perpetuates with Oliverâs arrest. We see how it breaks him as his hero persona is no longer his. He takes up the role of the villain, and that kills him because he was never meant to play that role. Everything about him screams hero and I think he himself believed that, so his sense of self crumbles away as it is slowly revealed that he is in fact, the villain of this story. And yet, what makes him the villain is still technically a heroic act. He killed a tyrant after all. And that is just hella clever.
IWWV almost reads as really complicated fairytale if you think of it as these characters as the archetypes of their roles. It is definitely the most fascinating and creative way of character writing Iâve ever seen and that is a feat on its own. It follows a formula, yet it defies the routinely-ness of that, the audience can understand whatâs going on like in the middle of the book and I think that serves well in this scenario because now, itâs only a matter of dread and waiting for the final act to commence. I never felt like I was reading an intermission in any parts of it as everything, both character and environment, serve the plot really well.Â
But of course, despite all my praise, this book is not free of the criticisms and I did feel frustration for some parts of it whether it was good or bad frustration. Itâs not a perfect book and I have a few gripes with it.Â
The way it treats Meredith and Wren specifically is appalling. It, sadly, goes into that really bad trope in some queer books of the women getting in the way of the men hooking up. I really feel bad for these women because, even if they still have their own things going on and they are able to be their own characters, they somehow become extensions of the men that they are involved with, and everytime, it is extremely unfair.Â
Iâll just say it, Oliver is just using Meredith to forget about James. I donât doubt he loves her or doesnât think of her as attractive because he does, but there is an aspect to their relationship that they both donât deny is really connected to Oliverâs and Jamesâ relationship. This is a flaw of Oliverâs character that I donât like because itâs so unfair for Meredith and the way they started their relationship is also kind of dubious? I mean, Meredith went for Oliver not only because he was âniceâ, she also went for him because he was the only one available and the complete opposite of Richard. Meredith had no interest in Oliver in the first few scenes of this book and Oliver also didnât really think of her much because she was already with Richard, but he couldnât deny she was pretty. I just donât like the implications of their relationship to Meredithâs character and her struggle with objectification and her constantly being sexualized by the men around her. I know Oliver wouldnât do that, but at the end of the day, isnât he just using her?Â
I desperately want to believe in their love and I do! But it gets so bad when you mix in James because suddenly, Meredith no longer exist to Oliver. He literally went to jail for the guy, of course, his love for James isnât equal in any way to his love for Meredith. I also just donât agree with how the ending has Oliver and Meredith together only for Oliver to essentially leave Meredith because he finds out that James might still be alive. He admits that he was still in love with James! I understand that polyamorous relationships are a thing, but clearly Oliver has shown to be neglecting of Meredith whenever James comes to his peripheral vision! I just think that, maybe, Meredith deserves better than how Oliver is treating her.Â
And god, donât get me started on James and Wren. They, frankly, came out of nowhere! I think its because we are limited to Oliverâs perspective so we donât see how their relationship developed and how their dynamic would go. I do see that James cares much for Wren and vice-versa and that they could totally work, but god, when you mix Oliver into it, Wren just doesnât exist. I am extremely upset about the part where James gets incredibly drunk and then drags Wren to sleep with him for the same reasons Oliver sleeps with Meredith! And I hate it.
Itâs very messy, and very well-written and very in-character, but god the implications. The way these women are being treated in the relationship drama is just to serve the menâs own relationship and how they totally belong to each other, but somehow theyâre not together and they have to stay with the women and itâs really messy and Oliver is a disaster bisexual. Maybe I just donât like love triangles or love squares, but this is just a prime example why you shouldnât date someone in the same friend group. Itâs messy and sometimes, I debate with myself if it was necessary. Either way, it happened and I canât do anything about that. Â
I have a lot of thoughts about IWWV and the book itself has a lot of themes and messages that really struck me. One thing that I really liked about IWWV as an aroace-spectrum person is the friend groupâs relationship because despite all the tragedy around them, they manage to be really wholesome and there examples there of platonic intimacy that I donât usually get to see in books. I love how Oliver and Filippa are essentially like siblings with how they are always there for each other and Filippa is always looking out for him and their other friends. I love the brotherly relationship between Oliver and Alexander. And despite my gripes, there are moments in Oliverâs and Meredithâs relationship that remind me that they were friends first and lovers second, and I really appreciate that.
I didnât mention Oliverâs and Jamesâ relationship as much because Iâm pretty sure thatâs what you would expect for me to say. Itâs a good relationship, I like it since Iâve always been a fan of that kind of dynamic where they transcend the meaning of best friends, theyâre gay essentially, but they are also each otherâs person and their intimacy is beyond physical. Iâm just describing sexual/romantic tension here but everytime they are in screen together, you just know that they are looking at each other with so much emotion. And of course, what Oliver did for James was incredibly stupid, but also just states what James is to Oliver. And itâs really codependent, donât get me wrong, but itâs a kind of love that makes you feel thing.
I also would like to comment on how it tackles grief and guilt as those are major themes in the story. I appreciate how despite being dead, Richard is still ever-present in Oliverâs mind and everyone elseâs that no one even bothers to go to his room aside from Oliver who just has to because he has to clean it. Guilt haunts everyone in If We Were Villains and I feel for that, especially when it comes to grief. It captures perfectly what mourning for someone who did some really bad stuff to you is like with the added guilt that you somehow contributed to his death. And itâs cruel how these people just have to deal with that major change; nothing is ever the same when someone dies and we canât do anything about it. The show must go on, unfortunately. And thatâs what happens to these characters, on or off the stage, life will continue with or without them and they have to go with out, otherwise they might end up drowning in their own misery. I think that is much the moral we can find in IWW, if it even has one.
My scoring would be an 8/10. Itâs really good and I recommend it to anyone whoâs a fan of shakespeare or really into dark academia. I wouldnât say it would be the best introduction book for this genre, but it got me into it so maybe it could work for you too!
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