VICIOUS by V.E. Schwab was a solid 4 star book, in my opinion. I really enjoyed everything about it, and I don’t really have any negatives to discuss.

It’s about two college science students (Victor [YAY!], Eli [BOO]) who, while researching their theses, figure out how to create ExtraOrdinaries (i.e. Superheros).

So, how did they find this answer? Well, Eli figured out that all EOs had one thing in common - near death experiences (NDE), and both Eli and Victor decide that it seems safe enough to try on each other, to get some abilities. And it works.

Your last thought during the NDE, the one that keeps you from leaving this world for good, is how your ability is created. For Eli, as a religious person, he put his life into God’s hands, and thus the regeneration (immortality) ability came to be. Victor used pain to cause his NDE and it was so horrifically awful, all he could think was to make it stop, and thus his ability.

I really liked that idea on how abilities are “chosen”. It makes sense.


Unfortunately, neither of these guys were good to begin with, and the aftermaths of using themselves as guinea pigs had serious repercussions - Victor lands himself in prison for 10 years and Eli gains a god-complex (partially due to his ability (regeneration)) that’s so extreme, his psychopathic personality decides to take center stage, and he begins exterminating EOs. (Not himself of course.)


When Victor escapes from prison, he only has one goal: to kill and/or torture his former friend Eli. And he has the ability to do it (well the torture part). He can diminish, remove or enhance pain from his targets and himself. And he definitely wants to use his ability on Eli. Over and over and over again.


When Victor helps a young injured girl, he finds out that Eli is killing other EOs and decides to use that to his advantage too.


I honestly loved every one on Victor’s team:

Victor - our sociopath anti-hero, superhero. Using pain to save the day...well, mostly to save himself, but oh well.

Sydney - the wonderfully colorful young girl who Victor rescues. Her ability made Eli want to kill her on the spot (she can bring people back to life). Luckily Syd’s sister was there to “save” the day. Not really, her sister’s a psycho too.

Mitch - Hacker extraordinaire. Death magnet. Lucky sonofagun.


And I hated Eli and Serena (Syd’s sister). Hated them. Both Victor and Eli are psychotic. Neither are good guys, However, Victor had that endearing Dexter-like quality about him, whereas Eli had that Hitler quality about him. Yeah.


Any way, I loved this. The pacing of the story was really well done. There was enough action that I was never bored, but there was still plenty of information dumping that I was never lost in what was going on and how things were happening. Perfectly done.


Again, I loved the characters (in general all were well written), and I liked that even though there were no “good” guys, there was still a team to root for.


Over all, I would definitely recommend VICIOUS to most of my friends, and I’m definitely looking forward to trying out other novels by V.E. Schwab/Victoria Schwab.