He rounded, dizzy, expecting to see a cop, or a thug, or even an EON soldier, but there was only a single man, short and balding, wearing round glasses and a white lab coat.

I felt the uncomplicated plot could have been tidily executed in half the pages. For an action-packed revenge thriller with superpowers thrown in, Vengeful is a 550+ page bloater of a book. Nothing to get excited about, but an unintrusive flow of words, which did make this a quick and easy read. I could not find much I liked about this book, but I will say that the actual writing is decent. This is because Vengeful has absolutely no character development. No matter where I found myself in the characters’ lives, they were the same people. I could follow the gist of the narrative, but one of the major issues is that I soon realised there was no need to. As soon as I had settled into where and when we were, off we went again.

Every few pages the narrative flits four years ago, or seven, or two weeks back, or returns to today. On a structural level, I thought this book had serious problems. “I’ll have to try harder.” Those blue eyes flicked to Eli.

If it was YA, I think Schwab might have gotten away with it, but these adults, in a book supposedly aimed at an adult audience, are such strained caricatures of charisma that all I could do was wince.Ī taste for dark clothes and a penchant for one-liners are not sufficient to create a badass hero, and I think the book lacks awareness on this point, focusing so much on stylised details that it completely neglects the actual substance of the narrative. Trying too hard to make a protagonist seem cool usually has the opposite effect, and Vengeful is a textbook example of this. The main issue I have with this book is its characters. The opening scene is gripping, and for the first few pages I wondered if this novel might have taken the few good bits of Vicious and elevated the series to a much higher level. I was kicked off the hype train before it even left the station, however.

The average rating on Goodreads is an impressive 4.21 stars, so I had reason for optimism. It is, I think, the better half of the duology, but I would not go so far as to call it a compelling narrative. Reviewing this book has taken some time, mostly because I’ve been too busy rolling my eyes at it.

Vengeful vicious