In this post I will post my reviews of both Vicious and Vengeful. Make sure that you don't scroll down too far if you have not read Vengeful yet!
Vicious
This book was very interesting, but somehow it did not grip me. I think I expected too much of it because of the hype. At the same time, I did not want to put the book down, all the characters were very complex, and the time jumping made it even better. At first, I was hesitant if going back and forth in the story would not hinder me, but it did not, surprisingly! It was very well done and I can only have the respect for Victoria Schwab, it was a risk and she mastered it.
This book builds up to Eli and Victor meeting, but since I did not care about Victor, I was kinda bored reading about him. The POV switches often, but I feel like most of the book is written from Victor's POV. I really enjoyed every other character, Eli, Serena, Mitch, Sydney, everyone was complex and interesting. Every character was morally grey and did a lot of bad things to be honest, which is also the point of the book.
Even though there was a lot of action in this book, I think I missed the parts where people came to understand why Victor did what he did. Maybe I have misread something or missed a page somehow, but I only hated him and was secretly rooting for the other bad guys instead of being torn between both are bad and evil but also a bit understandable, which I thought was the main thing I would feel throughout this book.
Also, the abilities of the EOs suited them perfectly, and I understand why they are the way they are, but it was just so necessary for the story that it felt a bit 'yeah, of course, he can do this' because we need it in the story. I would have liked to see just a complex character without a gift that suits their problem perfectly.
Don't get me wrong, VE Schwab did a wonderful job and this book is very good. My expectations were too high for this book and I was a bit disappointed. I liked it, but I did not like it enough for four stars because it was just entertaining. It did not grip me as some other books did. I am really excited to read the next book in this series, Vengeful, and see how the story and characters develop.
Vengeful
I liked this book so much more than Vicious. I had not expected to like it this much, especially because I did not care that much for the first book. I would have given this book a five-star rating, had the main characters come together a bit sooner such that the story tied in together. Now, we were just following separate main characters that somehow ended up in the same place by luck. No real reason whatsoever. I would have liked their storylines to intertwine a bit more.
In this book, I still hated Victor Vale, sorry buddy. I really liked Eli, June, Marcella, Mitch, Sydney, and even Dominic, who we did not get to know that well. Don't get me wrong, I did not think that they were nice people, but their personalities were complex and interesting. To be fair, June, Mitch, and Dominic were not that complex, but still interesting. Sydney will always be my favorite character, possibly also because she is the only good character in this series. She is just so innocent, that's the only way I can describe it. June had an interesting premise, but I never understood her obsession with Sydney. Again, it felt like something that was an easy connection to the story instead of something with a real reason. I really loved Mitch, but he was just a bystander in this book that did not have anything to do with the story at all. He existed and cared for Sydney, that's all. Eli took again a very interesting turn, with his cooperation with Stell and his manipulation. Oh, I also really liked the plot twist with the woman that was an EO working with EON. I wonder if I reread the book, I will find clues that she was an EO before the plot twist is explained because I never even questioned it.
To be honest, it is difficult to describe what is exactly so good about this book. It is definitely not the storyline, because I am sure you have seen most of it before. The characters are very complex, very morally questionable, and very dark at times. You really start to question if the characters that you are reading about and rooting for, are actually the bad guys. I think I switched sides more than 50 times. I just couldn't decide if I even agreed with anyone anymore.
This series is definitely a must read if you like villain stories. But, if you don't care about characters that much and more about the story, I would personally go for another book. This story is good, but the complex characters make it remarkable.