WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW
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| “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.”- If We Were Villains, ML Rio |
Enter the players. There were seven of us then, seven bright young things with wide precious futures ahead of us. Until that year, we saw no further than the books in front of our faces.
On the day Oliver Marks is released from jail, the man who put him there is waiting at the door. Detective Colborne wants to know the truth, and after ten years, Oliver is finally ready to tell it.
Ten years ago: Oliver is one of seven young Shakespearean actors at Dellecher Classical Conservatory, a place of keen ambition and fierce competition. In this secluded world of firelight and leather-bound books, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingénue, extra. But in their fourth and final year, the balance of power begins to shift, good-natured rivalries turn ugly, and on opening night real violence invades the students’ world of make believe. In the morning, the fourth-years find themselves facing their very own tragedy, and their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, each other, and themselves that they are innocent.
Part coming-of-age story, part confession, If We Were Villains explores the magical and dangerous boundary between art and life. In this tale of loyalty and betrayal, madness and ecstasy, the players must choose what roles to play before the curtain falls.
On the day Oliver Marks is released from jail, the man who put him there is waiting at the door. Detective Colborne wants to know the truth, and after ten years, Oliver is finally ready to tell it.
Ten years ago: Oliver is one of seven young Shakespearean actors at Dellecher Classical Conservatory, a place of keen ambition and fierce competition. In this secluded world of firelight and leather-bound books, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingénue, extra. But in their fourth and final year, the balance of power begins to shift, good-natured rivalries turn ugly, and on opening night real violence invades the students’ world of make believe. In the morning, the fourth-years find themselves facing their very own tragedy, and their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, each other, and themselves that they are innocent.
Part coming-of-age story, part confession, If We Were Villains explores the magical and dangerous boundary between art and life. In this tale of loyalty and betrayal, madness and ecstasy, the players must choose what roles to play before the curtain falls.
Last month, I finally read The Secret History after it had been sitting on my shelf since *ahem* July and decided it was one of my favorite books ever. I couldn't get enough of the plot and characters and just everything about it. Happily, since it came out, there have been dozens upon dozens of books trying to duplicate the success of The Secret History, and today's book is one of them.
Reading If We Were Villains is interesting because it takes the plot and characters of The Secret History and sucks all the life out of them. Even if I hadn't recently read The Secret History, I could probably still pick up on the distinct rip-offness of this novel. It just doesn't feel fresh and original. For one, I wasn't nearly as invested in the characters. That's where the huge size of The Secret History works, it gives Tartt room to introduce the characters, have us get to know them before the murder, and then allow her to play around with their psyche after the murder. In this, we barely knew them before the murder, so we don't really have a clear indication as to whether or not how their acting is within the norm for their character.
I also think that there were too many characters to focus on. Sure, Tartt's book also had a lot of main characters, but again Tartt's book was almost 600 pages and that's more than enough room to have a large cast of main characters. In this novel, I couldn't keep any of the characters straight in my head, and constantly confused, say, Alexander and James or forgot that Richard and Wren were cousins. I did, however, find it amusing to pair up each character with their The Secret History counterpart- Oliver is like a less-likable version of Richard, Meredith and Wren both have elements of Camilla in them, Alexander is kind of like Bunny and Charles, James is Francis, and Richard is both Henry and Charles. That leaves Filippa as the only original character and probably the author's favorite given that she gets the most page time out of anyone besides Oliver.
The mystery was also underwhelming. By the third chapter, I guessed who was going to die and who killed him. One of the things that annoyed me about this book was that Rio overdid it on Richard, making him out to be a world class jerk. Compare that to Bunny in The Secret History, who had his faults but you felt bad for him in the end.
Anyway, I don't really recommend If We Were Villains, unless one is a big Shakespeare or The Secret History fan. If you are, it's worth at least checking this one out.
6 out of 10
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