If We Were Villains Book Review

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If We Were Villains was a book club pick for Amy’s Book Club and it was a brilliant read to discuss! Set in an elite performing arts school, a close-knit group of friends are passionately committed to the theatre of their classes. One of them, Oliver, notices that he’s always in the supporting role and never the leading man, that is until one day, he finds himself cast as one, and that’s when real life starts to get messy. Tensions rise within the group as friendships are shattered until finally someone turns up dead and Olivier is the one in handcuffs. After 10 years serving a sentence for a crime he may or may not have committed, Oliver is finally read to tell the truth.

I attempted to read The Secret History about 18 months ago and was so bored of the unlikable characters and convoluted plot that I ended up DNF’ing it. While reading If We Were Villains I couldn’t help but keep thinking that this is a far more digestible and captivating version of Tart’s tome. It’s got all the mystery and charm of a dark academia, but keeps things simple, and most importantly, includes characters that while flawed, are ultimately realistic and likeable enough.

As for the plot itself, I was surprised how little ‘thriller’ there was in it, but there was a lot of tension, just built up in other ways. The crime that the main mystery focuses on doesn’t actually happen until halfway through the book and so it’s actually inconsequential to how invested you are in the book because you’ll be hooked before it even happens and I think that’s a testament to the author’s ability to create characters that suck us in. The relationships within the main group of friends are very messy and it was nice to focus on each of them to see their variety and complexity. Oliver and James in particular made for a partnership that was hard to look away from, and I enjoyed how invested I became in all of them.

One other interesting part of the book is how often it quotes Shakespeare; it’s a completely unique way to page homage to the playwright and what I will say is that if you don’t like Shakespeare or find the writing hard to understand, you can skip those parts of the dialogue and you’ll be able to gauge their meaning from the character’s responses and actions – so don’t let it put you off!

While the thriller/mystery side of this book is great, what’s even more captivating is watching young people make messy and pivotal decisions and watch as they ricochet throughout their lives. As a character study this book was really fascinating and I found the book fast-paced as I wanted to inhale every detail of all them, not least so I could try and solve the mystery! I’m very glad this lived up to it’s hype and I’ll be interested to see what Rio writes next!