Review: Vengeful

Vengeful by V.E. Schwab
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After reading and enjoying Schwab’s Shades of Magic series, I was eager to dive into the Villains series. It sounded like the perfect read for me, offering the kind of story I adore. Unfortunately, I was disappointed by Vicious. It was addictive, yes, but it failed to wow me in the way I had hoped. Nevertheless, I was curious about Vengeful.

Despite being curious, I was tentative. I was worried Vengeful would be another Schwab book where I did not understand the hype. Although I did enjoy Vengeful much more than I enjoyed Vicious, it still wasn’t quite the mind-blowing read everyone had me expecting. I can appreciate Schwab’s work, I enjoy Schwab’s work, but I doubt I will ever fall into the category of full-blown fangirl. With Vengeful there was a lot more to the story, it was addictive, but it still felt like there was something holding me back from being fully immersed in the story.

With Vengeful, we have multiple storylines connecting. Things from Vicious continue, and new elements are introduced. This results in a book with a lot more substance than Vicious, one that had me curious to see how everything would play out. As with Vicious, we bounce back and forth in time to slowly develop the whole picture – with this happening for many of the characters.

When everything does come together, it does so well. There were some points that I thought were a bit too easy, but as a whole I really enjoyed it. The way things finished, it’s possible there will be a third book in the series. Should there be a third book, I’ll certainly give it a read.

Overall, Vengeful was much more enjoyable than Vicious, yet it was not enough to leave me enjoying the Villains series more than the Shades of Magic series.

View all my reviews