i don’t even know where to begin. head empty. just pain. this book was everything i thought it wouldn’t be. and it consumed me in the best way possible, i don’t think i can ever move on from this masterpiece. the foreshadowing in this book is utterly crazy. I’ve seen few female characters written more poorly than Meredith. In the beginning of the story, all of the classmates are asked to share their biggest insecurities. Merediths is that she doesn’t want to just be seen as beautiful, sexy- she doesn’t want her body to cause people to overlook her personality and intelligence.

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio | Goodreads If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio | Goodreads

the passion which radiates throughout this story makes me feel so in love with shakespeare and his words (and i honestly never considered myself a fan). the way in which these students dedicate their lives to studying him is almost romantic, in a way. how they integrate his language into their own interactions, making their own lives a work of poetry in the process, is very inspiring.

The ending was something you would see coming, but wouldn't see coming.The last line..GUYS the last line..i have no words

If We Were Villains: The sensational TikTok Book Club pick If We Were Villains: The sensational TikTok Book Club pick

Many readers including Cynthia d'Aprix Sweeney, the writer of The Nest, compared this novel to Donna Tartt's The Secret History.I loved this book very much, as I love anything that even slightly reminds me of The Secret History, and anything that invests me insanely in a set of annoying (at best) or criminal (at worst) characters, and anything with a plot so twisty and intense that it makes my heart beat faster, and anything whose ending I dread (even as I found the book less and less interesting as it went on). At the same time, the seven main characters, including the one who dies, are joined together in complex relationships of friendship and love and part of the work of the novel is to explore the differences between these forms of affective connections. More important than fixed sexual preferences—at least one of the characters represents himself as being fluid in his desires—is the examination of how other feelings, including envy or hatred, might contribute to desire and its expression. Because many of the characters are alienated from their families, the bonds they have created during their time at Dellecher Classical Conservatory are a source of emotional comfort and strength. Yet, in trying to protect the sustaining connections they created, the group tragically embarks on a course that guarantees their collapse. At the end of the novel, Filippa tells Oliver they are no longer in touch. That he still sees the shade of Richard suggests this is not entirely true. All in all, we follow main characters. At first, I do think they're a bit stereotypical and cliche, but I thought Rio did a good job at exploring these cliches, and analysing why and how people categorise characters and people. 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. If We Were Villains has a deep pull. Rio makes it impossible not to be consumed by this story, not to fall in love with each of these characters, with the encompassing attraction of a group of friends who have made ruins of each other, and the tragic intoxicating chemistry of two lovers who held each other in plain sight of the world, though their bodies remained forever separate. It’s impossible not to feel caught up in the webs she creates: in the thorny tangle of guilt, frustration, and longing, the rivalry, the blurred lines between love and hate, the fractured loyalties and determined single-minded violent obsessions that can never end well for most but make for one hell of a story for the ones who survive to tell it.

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio | Goodreads

no, i do not understand Shakespeare at all and yes, i do want to make this book my entire personality. 🖤 Oliver Marks has just served ten years in jail – for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he’s released, he’s greeted by the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened a decade ago. As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless. If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio – eBook Details The question is so unlikely, so nonsensical coming from such a sensible man, that I can’t suppress a smile. “I blame him for all of it,” I say.

SparkNotes—the stress-free way to a better GPA

Richard Stirling’s cousin and peer actor. Petite and blonde with an innocent disposition, Wren is often cast as an ingenue at Dellecher. Fragile Wren suffers bitterly following her cousin’s death. In conclusion, I am once again appalled that I'm not part of a tight-knit group of morally bankrupt Shakespeare devotees who sport an unhealthy obsession with aesthetics and together try to cover up a murder one of them committed. Where’s MY dark-academia main-character moment? Meredith Dardenne, an incredibly beautiful redhead who comes from a wealthy family of watch-makers; Richard's girlfriend. Plays The Femme Fatale. Which of us could say we were more sinned against than sinning? We were so easily manipulated - confusion made a masterpiece of us.” Actors are by nature volatile—alchemic creatures composed of incendiary elements, emotion and ego and envy. Heat them up, stir them together, and sometimes you get gold. Sometimes disaster.”