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I seriously debated if posting this review would even be worth it, because surely I’m the last bookish person on the internet to have read If We Were Villains. But I simply loved it too much to let the opportunity to gush about it for an entire post slide. M. L. Rio, you created a masterpiece!!

If for some frankly unfathomable reason (given the book’s massive popularity on Booktok) you don’t know what If We Were Villains is about: It focuses on a group of drama school students who are best friends, until they aren’t anymore because of a crime that happens and slowly but surely breaks each one of them.

No spoilers, but lots of emotions

I won’t include any spoilers in this review, and I do think it is a good idea to just throw yourself into this book without knowing too much about it. But to give you an idea of the vibe you can expect: Think dark academia, lots and lots and lots of Shakespeare references and quotes, a plot that will keep you on the edge of your seat the entire time and just the best sinister vibes. Also, it is written gorgeously, and somehow I did not expect that. I thought it was going to be gripping, yes, but the beauty of M. L. Rio’s sentences did surprise me. It is a stunning novel, its prose in itself would be good enough to forgive a middling plot, but If We Were Villains delivers on all fronts.

A lot of people compare it to The Secret History by Donna Tartt, and while I do understand why (a crime and the dark academia vibes), I think comparing the two does If We Were Villains a disservice. Because to me, it offered so much more than The Secret History and I think it’s reductive to only focus on the aspects that it has in common with Donna Tartt’s book. Yes, the crime becomes one of the central elements of the novel around which everything else revolves, but to me, this is not a murder mystery first and foremost. It’s a story about friendship and jealousy, betrayal and loyalty and the messiness of adolescence.

Characters so addictive you must keep reading

Above all, I loved the characters (something I very much struggled with in The Secret History). They were initially put into boxes by forcing them to always perform as the same type of stereotypical characters in the plays the put on, only for them to break out of those categories and become their complex, messy selves. And while I often did not approve of what the characters were doing, I always understood their motivations or at the very least could see that, to them, they had no other option. They were beautifully human in their depseration and passions, and that was incredible to witness.

I could go on about If We Were Villains forever and I am so glad I finally gave it a read. Honestly, if I had known that it focused on Shakespeare’s plays so much, I would have read it a lot sooner, but I also feel like I read it at the perfect moment in time. If you like books about theatre kids, about performance, about hiding behind characters, the power and beauty of language and getting caught up in your own head, then this is the book for you. It truly does deserve all the hype it is getting on Booktok, and I’m still blown away by M. L. Rio’s storytelling and how immersed I felt in the characters’ world. It was like I was right there with them, and I had the best (and most devastating) time.

Gimme all the Shakespeare

Also, it immediately made me want to reread Shakespeare’s plays, so if you are looking for a way to engage with his work that is fun and a bit different, I would highly recommend reading If We Were Villains. All the discussions the characters have on his work and watching them perform his plays helped me see Shakespeare from a different angle, and that is something I always enjoy. If you’re looking for more books in which Shakespeare plays a role, I have a blog post all about that here. And if you’ve read If We Were Villains, do let me know your thoughts, please!! ❤