If We Were Villains

Oh, If We Were Villains, thou hadst such boundless promise, yet alas, hast faltered, and now I cannot deem thee more than a tome bound in the chains of mediocrity's curse.

While I've always been quite critical of The Secret History regardless of how much I adore it, the genre it spawned is very much something I enjoy. I've known about If We Were Villains for a long time but held off until now. The reason being a class on Shakespeare that I've decided to undertake this semester. I thought it'd be fun to read this while weekly dissecting Shakespeare's plays. I was wrong.

If We Were Villains lacks character beyond the utter preposterousness of the principal characters. Shakespeare indeed is very cool but you don't need to quote him on every page during normal conversation.

The issue that I fear absolutely ruined the book for me was the lack of character for the Dellecher Shakespeare conservatory. It never felt like a real place with real people. The Secret History pushed my suspension of disbelief far with a class of students who study Greek and nothing else but to dedicate an entire course to Shakespeare and by the fourth year you're still on Julius Caesar is hilarious. Where are the lesser known plays? Do they really never do anything but study their lines and act? Why are all the plays portrayed as the most boring productions possible with nothing original? Less than a week ago I went to see a beautiful production of The Merchant of Venice that portrayed Antonio and many of the Christian characters as members of the Italian mob. That's what I'd expect them to be doing in their fourth year.

As many others pointed out the twist is predictable and taken right out of The Secret History but stripped of any semblance of making sense. The ending was poor.