All of Us Villains

All of Us Villains Book Review by Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman

All of Us Villains makes me think of If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio, a book I absolutely love. So, not a bad start at all. 

All of Us Villains was lauded as the next dark Hunger Games-esque tournament style novel with despicable characters and action up the yin-yang. 

And you know what? 

I actually think it delivered on that front really well. 

It annoys me nowadays when anything at all that has some kind of tournament is related to Hunger Games simply because of the competition. Suzanne Collins didn’t create the idea of a tournament, it’s been around forever (cough cough the coliseum in Rome cough cough), but she certainly popularized the idea. 

All of Us Villains is about a group of seven teenagers, nicknamed the Slaughter Seven, who enter a long-held family tradition of competing in a battle-royale fight to the death in order to determine which of the seven families gets to rule over the high-magick of Ilvernath. 

So in this novel, magic exists and is well-known. The town of Ilvernath capitalizes on it in terms of the media, consumerism, and sensationalism. This is actually one aspect of the book that I dislike. A mysterious character in the novel publishes a book called Tradition of Tragedy, which details the bloody history of the tournament. I don’t think it makes any difference to me as a reader that the government finds out about the tournament and is trying to intervene. 

They don’t do anything to stop it (which is bullshit since children are killing each other) and reporters flock to the scene like vultures. This part of the book doesn’t make sense to me. You could have the same flack and social commentary just within the town of Ilvernath itself. By involving the government, I think both Foody and Herman dip into absurdism that I find completely unrealistic and add a layer I don’t think is necessary. 

The magic system itself is…fine. It honestly is not why I’m reading the novel. They have different curse names, potions, spells, septograms, and different kinds of magic. I’ve read both better and worse magic systems. I don’t think it’s amazing, but it also isn’t terrible. It’s just fodder for the plot and the characters. 

Speaking of plot, talk about action. 

As a character-driven reader I usually get really bored of action really fast. I fall in love with characters more than I fall in love with stories. However, this book has really intense and really fun action. Not only that, but I actually think the characters are strong enough to hold themselves up in the process, which surprised me. 

The action is fun, dangerous, and entertaining. Like the OG Hunger Games, this novel takes awhile to get started. It goes past the 100 page mark when the tournament actually begins and I do think the pacing and the set-up is slow. Not that it was entirely unimportant, but I do think they drag it out to build suspense and I don’t think it works in their favor. 

The pace and the plot really only pick up once the tournament starts and once it does it blasts off. It’s a page-turner from that point forward. The ending especially is just one action-packed scene after the other, both titillating and able to progress the characters. 

On the topic of characters, I genuinely like most of them. I feel like I’m always surprised when this happens, but in my opinion, most of the characters are well-developed and nuanced. The book switches POV’s between four characters, which at first I thought was way too many, but surprisingly it works and they all build off one another. 

Each character starts as a certain archetype: the monster, the victim, the weakling, the hero, but they each gradually grow into something more. I expected this, but the growth each character has and the decisions they make mature and grow more sophisticated as the book progresses. 

By the end, many of the characters actually swap archetypes and instead of finding it predictable, I thought it was well executed. I don’t think I have a favorite necessarily and there are some things I found cheesy, like the quick romance between Isobel and Alistair, but even that is subverted to some extent. 

Alistair's whole schtick about being a monster does get old, especially as it’s painfully obvious that he isn’t monstrous or villainous, but the character who does end up fulfilling that role fits it much better. 

Isobel’s whole thing about being the victim works really well and her character arc makes both sense and is interesting to read about. 

Briony was my least favorite at first, but her own self-actualization about being selfish and not actually a hero became one of my favorite arcs. Her chapters ended up being some of my favorites by the end. 

Last, Gavin Grieve. I thought he would be my favorite character, but it turns out that he’s my least favorite. His arc is as good as the others, but like Alistair, he falls victim to his archetype pretty frequently until the very end, which gets old after awhile.

All of Us Villains really surprised me. I expected a fun, easy read and not much more. To my delight though, I instead found a book with deeper characters than anticipated and an intricate plot with exciting twists and turns. 

It’s not my favorite book of all time, but I’ll definitely be reading the sequel and I can’t wait to see what happens to these villainous characters. 

Recommendation: If you can’t get enough of competition-style stories, like Hunger Games or Squid Game, then this will scratch that itch beautifully. The characters really propel the story forward and the plot is fun, dark, and twisted. Sick of the heroes and want more focus on the villains? This is the book for you. 

Score: 8/10