Vengeful
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4.5 • 305 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The second book in #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author V.E. Schwab's beloved Villains series- a masterful tale of ambition, jealousy, and superpowers.
A super-powered collision of extraordinary minds and vengeful intentions—V. E. Schwab returns with the thrilling follow-up to Vicious.
Magneto and Professor X. Superman and Lex Luthor. Sydney and Serena Clarke. Victor Vale and Eli Ever.
Great partnerships—now soured on the vine.
But Marcella Riggins needs no one.
Flush from her brush with death, she’s gained the control she always sought—and will use her newfound power to bring the city of Merit to its knees. She’ll do whatever it takes, from taking over the mob to collecting her own sidekicks, and even leveraging the two most infamous EOs, Victor Vale and Eli Ever, in a dangerous game of cat and mouse.
With Marcella's rise, new enmities create surprising opportunity—and the stage of Merit will once again be set for a final, terrible reckoning.
“In Vengeful, V.E. Schwab is at the top of her game, with twisty action, oddball family pairings and unexpected antiheroes you can’t help but root for.” —Washington Post
“Schwab's characters feel vital and real, never reduced to simple archetypes... In a genre that tends toward the flippant or pretentious, this is a rare superhero novel as epic and gripping as any classic comic. Schwab's tale of betrayal, self-hatred, and survival will resonate with superhero fans as well as readers who have never heard of Charles Xavier or Victor von Doom.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
If there’s anything more powerful than superheroes working together, it’s superheroes working against each other. In the second installment of the Villains series, Marcella Riggins is on the rise—and she’s smart enough to know that the hatred between ExtraOrdinaries Eli and Victor is something she can use to her advantage. V.E. Schwab has a special talent for coming up with gripping characters who are simultaneously larger than life and understandable at eye level, wrestling with self-loathing, betrayal, and other universal challenges. Vengeful is sure to suck newcomers into her world, while generously rewarding fans already hooked by Vicious.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With all the knife-sharp thrill of its cinematic predecessor, 2013's Vicious, bestseller Schwab's second Villains series plunges readers back into the world of extraordinary humans, or EOs, who were granted special abilities after near-death experiences. Upon being revived, Victor Vale discovers his pain-dealing powers are not only on the fritz but slowly killing him. With the help of hacker Mitch Turner, he seeks a fellow EO to cure him. Meanwhile, newly empowered Marcella Riggins and shape-shifting assassin June are taking over the local mob by force. Eventually the trail of bodies left by both groups bring them to the attention of EON, a clandestine paramilitary organization determined to contain or neutralize all EOs, and in whose laboratories serial murderer Eli Ever is being tortured in a never-ending science experiment. When ordinary human soldiers prove ineffective at tracking Victor or killing Marcella, EON lets Eli out of his cage, and these disparate-seeming threads are finally woven together with Schwab's characteristic skill, suspense, and vivid imagery. New readers and fans of Schwab's many other books for adults and teens will dive right in, and fans of Vicious will be overjoyed to rediscover this exciting series.
Customer Reviews
From morally grey to dark charcoal
I finished Vengeful and I’ve come to one very important conclusion:
These people desperately need therapy.
This sequel drops us back into the Villains world with Victor Vale still being brilliant, manipulative, and morally questionable, Eli Ever still believing God personally hired him to eliminate anyone with powers, and a whole new cast of ExtraOrdinaries who prove that superpowers and good decision-making rarely travel together.
Victor spends most of the book slowly dying every time he uses his ability, which is a pretty inconvenient side effect when your entire life strategy revolves around outmaneuvering your enemies. Meanwhile Eli is locked up, still convinced that murdering people with powers is somehow righteous work. Their rivalry remains one of the most fascinating dynamics in the series, even if we don’t get quite as many scenes between them as I would have liked.
The new characters are where this book really expands the world. Marcella Riggins enters the story like a mafia queen with a touch-of-death superpower and immediately begins turning people into dust in her quest for power. She’s ruthless, theatrical, and absolutely the kind of villain who understands the value of making an entrance. Then there’s June, a shapeshifting assassin who might be one of the most intriguing characters in the book, mostly because we understand almost nothing about her motivations. Her backstory feels like it’s locked behind some future installment, but she’s still fascinating to watch.
And then there’s the strange little family Victor has built around himself. Mitch, the gentle hacker who somehow ended up babysitting a group of superpowered criminals. Sydney, who can bring people back from the dead and carries the emotional weight of that ability everywhere she goes. Even Dol, the resurrected dog, somehow manages to feel like the most emotionally stable member of the group. Their scenes together are chaotic, dysfunctional, and weirdly wholesome.
That said, Vengeful is a messier book than Vicious.
The story jumps between multiple timelines and perspectives, and there are moments where it feels like you’re juggling several different plots at once. At times I wished the focus had stayed tighter on Victor and Eli, because their rivalry is still the heart of this series.
But even with the chaos, Schwab’s writing keeps everything compelling. The characters are complex, morally gray, and endlessly entertaining. Watching these deeply flawed people navigate power, revenge, and survival makes for a story that’s hard to look away from.
Is it as sharp and focused as Vicious? Probably not.
Is it still wildly entertaining watching a room full of superpowered sociopaths try to outmaneuver each other?
Absolutely.
And if Schwab ever writes another Villains book, I’ll happily return to this dysfunctional, morally questionable world.
Wow and wow and wow
What a great story, and open world-building... enough said, read it!
Amazing book
This is a marvelous book, and a must read for those who enjoyed Vicious.