Vengeful is the continued story of Victor Vale and his gang of superhuman misfits as they try to avoid trouble but end up failing miserably.
Book Review by Katie Lynn Johnston
Much like her other works, V.E. Schwab’s Vengeful follows the paths of morally ambiguous characters in a dark and dreamy world, full of super-powered antiheroes who want nothing more than to be left alone.
Vengeful picks up after the perilous and twisted misadventures of superhuman or (as Schwab calls them), ExtraOrdinary (EO) Victor Vale, Sydney Clarke, Mitch Turner, and their resurrected dog, Dol. The book follows the gang as Vale tries to discover what’s wrong with him after dying and being brought back to life for the second time. It turns out; there’s something wrong with his electric ability, the extraordinary power which he gained from a self-inflicted near-death experience in college. Whatever is going wrong is causing his power to backfire and attack himself, killing him over and over and over again, no matter what he does. But things are not as they seem, and as if Schwab could not make things any worse for her characters, while on the search for what ails him, Vale and his gang of misfits find themselves in a far more dangerous position than they had anticipated when they come face to face with old enemies.
The book, similar to Vicious, the first installment in the Villains series, is full of many twists and turns and familiar faces like Eli Ever (Vale’s archenemy), as well as new faces and new EOs out to start trouble. One such character is Marcella Riggins, a mob-wife who gains supernatural powers when her husband burns their house down and leaves her inside to die. Each character Schwab introduces is as flawed and tortured as the next, whether it’s one of the not-so-good guys or the not-so-bad guys, and you can’t help but empathize with their every word and thought.
Still very much rooted in Schwab’s characteristic nonlinear storytelling and blunt style, Vengeful begins by throwing you right into the middle of the plot without anything to orient you. In distinct Schwabian fashion, after Marcella Riggins recovers in her hospital room and decides to kill her husband, the action does not stop. Even the still, quiet, and disheartening moments of the sequel are tinged with an acute anxiety that overwhelms you from the page. Schwab artfully pulls the reader from one unstoppable freight train of human angst, pain, and jealousy to the next. She swaps back and forth from the good guys to the bad guys and back again in such a quick and seamless way that you hardly recognize it’s happening.
Like Vicious, Schwab paints a masterful picture of human emotion and the twisted psyches, goals, and feelings of each character she creates, leaving you wanting more while trying to look away. Vengeful is a fantastic head-turning book that makes superheroes for grown-ups again, combining the action and quick-wit of Marvel, the nihilistic cynicism of DC, and the crude informalities of an HBO series all into one brilliant story. The familiarity of the superhero theme, the real emotions and fears of each character, and the constant motion make each scene feel as if they are happening in real time. As the characters fall into much deeper, darker caverns than they have ever experienced before, Schwab takes you right along with them for the ride.
Published by Tor Books, 2018
ISBN: 0-765-335344
368 pages