set the mood with candles, coffee/tea, blankets, and take advantage of the gloomy/cold fall weather. this book will demand all of your attention, so get comfy and focused. (it helps that this book is set in autumn & winter)

Many readers including Cynthia d'Aprix Sweeney, the writer of The Nest, compared this novel to Donna Tartt's The Secret History. The more we dive into the story the more the plot has a bitter connotation in how their subjective commun love for Shakespeare shadowed and blinded any other nuance of their lives. A ridiculous connotation in how their obsession drove them to play their own melancholic Scenes in their own gory and tragic Acts. A laughable connotation in how what reunited them once was the main factor that divided them at the end. Meredith is definitely the temptress, the femme fatale; she’s the she-devil of the story, tempting everyone with her perfect figure like she’s some sort of sexual goddess walking on Earth amongst mortals; I, for once, didn’t like her almost at all; even though I sometimes felt sorry for her, I only saw her as being fake first of all to herself and then to the other around her; I wanted to like her, but I couldn’t, she was lying to herself and she only played with the others to make herself feel better; Wren - Richard's cousin, a delicate flower. Another reviewer described her as 'the girl next door' which I think is a good description for her.Although there are seven main characters, they share their lives with an eighth person, William Shakespeare. As Oliver notes in Act 2, Scene 8, Shakespeare felt like their older and wiser friend, one they could not see but whose ideas were always in their heads. He cites a line from The Two Gentlemen of Verona, “Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy” (3.2), to punctuate the thought. They speak and think in the language of Shakespeare on stage, in their classes, and in their personal lives. It is not too much to say that they cede parts of their identities to the Bard, assuming that this is a fair and reasonable bargain to make with genius. Yet, as undeniably powerful as Shakespeare’s works are, the worlds he depicts are full of dark passions. To immerse oneself in his tragedies, as the group does for their final year, is to constantly confront the worst elements of the human psyche. As the novel makes clear, this can be dangerous, perhaps especially for people who have yet to reach full maturity. When Oliver sacrifices his future to rewrite the ending of a personal tragedy which he understands as Shakespearean, he exemplifies the ease with which a young and good person can be swayed to make questionable choices by imagined intimacy with genius. This mystery starts with Alex Stern who finds herself the sole survivor of an unsolved, bloody multiple homicides. Whilst recovering in her hospital bed, Alex is offered a place at Yale in their freshman class with all expenses paid. How could we explain that standing on a stage and speaking someone else’s words as if they are your own is less an act of bravery than a desperate lunge at mutual understanding? An attempt to forge that tenuous link between speaker and listener and communicate something, anything, of substance.” Half the beauty of the book is the way it's written. The way it was all put together was pure genius. But, it wasn’t on my radar until years later, when my best friend from grade school, a fellow reader, reached out and implored me to read it. Since we often have similar reading tastes and enjoy literary fiction like this, I gladly took her recommendation and dove in.

Oliver - The main character. He's the 'good guy', generally nice, just wants everyone to be friends and keep the peace. He is a bit naive, a little bit unsure of himself, but as likeable as these characters can be. If We Were Villains truly captured the extreme emotions, as well as the monumental actions they can cause over the course of five tragic acts, in the lives of both Shakespeare’s and Rio’s characters.

I honestly can feel the pertinence of this group. They really look like real-life people whom you might get acquainted with at some point in life. I love their dynamics as a group, but I have different feelings for each of them. James is another favourite of mine; he’s always the good guy, the hero, the one with a noble heart; he’s definitely a Prince Charming and honestly, my heart just melts for him; but even the best of people have their demons talking in their ears and James is honestly fighting his demons – desperately; i honestly just want to reread the book just so i can find all the easter eggs hidden behind the passages that i didn’t get the first time reading it. i just know that they’re more to be found. And, indeed, their actions show it. The players each travel down many dark, twisted, and even surprising, paths over the course of the year. Oliver - Our main protagonist, who is nice, and who is sweet, and who just wants to keep the peace between his group of friends. Also, Oliver is totally pansexual and no one can change my mind on this.