V.E. Schwab’s sequel to Vicious,Vengeful, is officially out in the world and ready to wreck havoc on our reading lives. You better believe that I already ate my most anticipated book of the year AND YES, IT WAS DELICIOUS AS I IMAGINED IT TO BE. After loving Viciousand declaring it as one of my favorite books of all-time, I sort’ve knew that I was bound to fall in love with Vengeful. Vengeful easily met my expectations and more. Today I’m going to be walking you through why you need to be reading Vengeful NOW- and if you still haven’t read Vicious, find out why you need to here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHY YOU NEED TO READ ONE OF MY ALL-TIME FAVES NOW: 

Reunited with our Vicious main cast – A bit of an obvious reason, but how can you not be excited to be reunited with Victor Vale and co.?

It’s even darker than Vicious– All of our characters from Vicious are in even more high stakes places in this installment. Unfortunately, Victor just doesn’t seem to be feeling like he used to. A maturing, but not exactly aging Sydney questions why she feels like she has to stay with Victor. Mitch is stuck between his loyalty to Victor and creating a life for Sydney. Dol is just waiting for Sydney to drop her bacon. And let’s not forget our favorite antagonist, Eli, who’s spending time behind bars.

Besides our cast facing darkness themselves, Vengeful‘s mood is quite dark– is anyone surprised?? Led by our beloved Detective Stell, there’s an even bigger crackdown on EOs, and there’s a new villain ready to bring the city of Merit to its knees.

Two new badass female characters- Vengeful introduces us to two new prominent EOs, Marcella and June. While she definitely creeped me out, I loved Marcella as our big antagonist and I loved getting to know her backstory. I thought June’s own power was interesting as well, and I liked seeing her relationship with another character. I’m also going to need Marcella’s wardrobe ASAP.

Storytelling between the super past, the past and present- One of the reasons why I enjoyed Vicious so much was for its unique format. Vengeful is told in the same style, flipping from the past to the present. The past can be anything from weeks prior to years ago, such as getting certain character’s backstories or what they’ve been up to since the events of Vicious.

We get Eli’s backstory- Speaking of characters’ backstories, while we get a few in Vengeful, my favorite had to be Eli’s. I honestly wasn’t expecting to get Eli’s, since we do spend quite a bit of time with him in Vicious. While reading Vengeful, I realized that we didn’t get too in-depth with Eli in Vicious, for the most part going off of Victor’s perceptions of him. Eli’s backstory demonstrates why Eli is the person he came to be and the reasoning behind his EO power. Do I have sympathy for Victor’s biggest rival now??

COVER LOVE FOR THE BEST COVER GAME- Obviously including this point near the bottom because of course the cover of a book doesn’t influence how we feel about said book…. I’m SO in love with Vengeful’s cover! I love how it coinsides with the new Vicious covers, and I love how the color scheme matches V.E. Schwab’s other adult books and her middle grade novel, City of Ghosts.

Vengeful will leave you screaming at ALL the plot twists– I constantly had my hand flying to my mouth as I gasped throughout Vengeful. Once again, I am so impressed by V.E. Schwa’s storytelling. The ending perfectly fit the story.

The most important drink of all-No worries readers, there’s still plenty of chocolate milk, courtesy of Mitch, to go around.

Have you read Vicious or Vengeful? Are they on your TBR? Share in the comments below!