Wipe my memory clean – I need to experience this book again.
Usually, I would try and come up with something profound as my opener, try and make this review structured and have it give the illusion that this is somewhat professional, and pretend that I know what I am doing – maybe I should drop that facade and just go with the flow and drop down my thoughts on the books I read as I go (some food for thought for myself, really). As much as I have enjoyed this book blog, it started becoming almost like a chore to me – I started this with some great ideas in mind, but what’s blogging if not a fun way to pass the time? Anyway, enough of that, time to get to what you came here for – If We Were Villains.
I don’t even know how to preface this because in the hour since I read the final words, I have not been the same. I shut the book, marked it as complete, rated it on Goodreads, and then proceeded to clean parts of my apartment in an attempt to process the entirety of the book and calm down from it all. Did it work? Evidently not if I am here, rambling on about it.
I don’t think anyone I know has read the book – and maybe that’s the issue here, I think if there was someone, I would go to them and probably send them a message of several exclamation marks and ‘oh my god’ stylized in various ways, because truly, oh MY god.
Do I need this adapted for the screen? Yes. Am I scared of what that would be? Yes – what if it’s not exactly how I’ve pictured it? (The simple solution to this would be to write the whole screenplay myself but I have never done that, but lord knows I am ready for a challenge!)
It’s been … a while since I read something that has left me with so many feelings yet simultaneously speechless. I recently got into the habit of taking notes as I read, like any former literature student, I have about a million notebooks on hand, and why not finally fill them with something that’s actually worth being in there? It’s so much easier to process things when they are written; putting pen to paper, for me, has always been almost therapeutic, the little voices finally spilling out, in place elsewhere and not just in my mind, no longer gnawing at the walls, ready to pile out at any moment; almost like the events of the night in December, the night … well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves and spoil the book.
I had many questions and theories reading this book. The first obvious question that every reader of this book likely had was, “Who dies?”. Well, I know who, but until you do find out, it could really be anyone – or to me, one of three people that I narrowed it down to.
In many ways, this really is a true mystery, you have this group of friends, theatre students, who live on a very fine line between fact and fiction – how can it be otherwise, when they quote Shakespeare to one another in the middle of conversation like it’s a perfectly normal thing to do – caught up in a murder case. Someone knows exactly what happened, they surely must, but as the days grow brighter and longer, the group begins to unravel. Who is the culprit? Is it really the person we’ve been led to believe that it was? The facts don’t line up, or maybe that’s just what we’re supposed to think; after all, the book is in first person, and many books are known to have an unreliable narrator and then you add Shakespeare to the mix – it’s basically a recipe for disaster in the best and most poetic of ways.
This was such a rewarding read, that’s really the only way I can put it – the characters are all (for the most part) likable, and you find yourself rooting for them, rooting for their success professionally and in life. In some way, you really get to know these people through the eyes of the protagonist and build bonds with them. You feel what they feel, start reacting like them, almost like theatre actors want you to, because at the end of the day, this is real life, but simultaneously, a tragedy that would surpass even Shakespeare’s expectations. It’s engaging, it’s entertaining, shocking when and where it needs to be, each Act leaves you at a cliffhanger, urging you to keep reading, to keep turning the pages all the way until the end. It’s practically unputdownable, one stray gaze and you feel like you miss a key bit of information.
It’s inspirational, in its own special way, but maybe that’s just how I feel about it – coming from a literature background, I think it’s easy to connect with books that echo a life that once was, at least to some small extent.
aga is reading 