Vicious by VE Schwab

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong. {goodreads summary}

I feel as if I am savouring Schwab's novels, reading one every few months rather than binging them all in one go and being left with nothing to read next. Her writing never fails to delight; she is a superb storyteller and I have loved every novel and series I have read by her. Three things I particularly enjoyed about Vicious are:

1) Schwab's ability to switch between different timelines - weaving her story together seamlessly in a way that keeps you constantly on the edge of your seat and reveals information at just the right moment - is incredibly impressive. 

2) I love the way this story took a lot of tropes and turned them on their heads. A few stories recently have focused on villainous or morally grey characters, but what I liked about Vicious was the way the characters saw themselves, in contrast to how they came across to readers. Vicious didn't follow a clear-cut villain as he went against a stereotypical hero - Eli subverts the idea of what a hero is just as much as Victor challenges the concept of a villain. 

3) One of the things I enjoyed most about Our Dark Duet was the way Schwab intertwined poetry with her prose narrative. She does this again to great effect in Vicious with the use of blackout poetry.

I'm looking forward to diving into the sequel, Vengeful once I'm caught up on MA reading.