Vicious
V.E. Schwab, 2013
Fantasy Science fictionContemporary fictionHorror
Two former friends with extraordinary powers and no moral brakes hunt each other across a cold, comic-book-dark America. A superhero story told from the villain's side.
Feels like dread and melancholy. About morality, power and identity.
A page from the book
The mistake that doesn't look like one until later.
The moments that define lives aren’t always obvious. They don’t scream LEDGE, and nine times out of ten there’s no rope to duck under, no line to cross, no blood pact, no official letter on fancy paper. They aren’t always protracted, heavy with meaning. Between one sip and the next, Victor made the biggest mistake of his life, and it was made of nothing more than one line. Three small words."I’ll go first. V.E. Schwab.Vicious was Schwab's adult debut; its sequel, Vengeful, followed five years later, after readers spent years asking what happened next.
Books that feel like this
More by V.E. Schwab
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
V.E. Schwab, 2020
A girl who cannot be remembered makes a bargain with the dark—and then meets a boy who does.
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Questions readers ask
- What is Vicious like?
- Feels like dread and melancholy. About morality, power and identity.
- What should I read after Vicious?
- If you liked Vicious, try Watchmen (Alan Moore), The Nickel Boys (Colson Whitehead) and A Flicker in the Dark (Stacy Willingham).
A taste of the feed
All the futures a single building can quietly erase.
The boys could have been many things had they not been ruined by that place. Doctors who cured diseases or perform brain surgery, inventing shit that saves lives. Run for president. All those lost geniuses - sure not all of them were geniuses, Chickie Pete for example was not solving special relativity - but they had been denied even the simple pleasure of being ordinary. Hobbled and handicapped before the race even began, never figuring out how to be normal.
The Nickel Boys · Colson Whitehead
To confront true darkness is to risk becoming part of what you fear.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that, in the process, he does not become a monster. If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
A Flicker in the Dark · Stacy Willingham
When the primal needs of survival turn against your own humanity.
But being hungry was worse. Being hungry meant that he could smell things he didn’t want to smell—salt on skin; the overripe, sweet smell of blood exuding from the pores of strangers. It made him feel hungry and twisted up and utterly wrong. Hunching over, he jammed his fists into the pockets of his jacket and tried to breathe through his mouth.
City of Fallen Angels · Cassandra Clare
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