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tokrnis's reviews
284 reviews
4.0
3.0
Fanart in question: https://isawiitch.tumblr.com/post/663607181713784832/this-is-how-you-lose-the-time-war-details
5.0
** spoilers ahead
“But these words people threw around - humans, monsters, heroes, villains - to Victor it was all just a matter of semantics. Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens. Someone else could be labelled a villain for trying to stop them. Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.”
There’s something about the way Schwab’s writing just connects with me. How she can make even the smallest of things seem engaging. Her writing is one of the best things about her books. She’s a talented writer. I find it difficult to believe that anyone would disagree. One of the things that makes Schwab's work the most endearing in this book is the emphasis on how words and phrases sound. Schwab sometimes uses repeats or phrases that come out as flowery, but I believe that overall she has excellent control over her language. She keeps track of words and pauses to give her story structure. Nevertheless, the narration remains engaging and well-outlined.
This novel is a tale of 2 borderline sociopaths-psychopaths. One of which seems to be more agreeable compared to the other. We have Victor Vale and Eliot Cardale who started as roommates, and ended up enemies. From what was supposed to be a senior-year thesis to an experiment gone wrong—gone right, really, but it ruined their lives, so who’s to say what is right or wrong in the heart of self-destruction?
This is a story between the hero and the villain. And, in most cases, the hero is the good guy. The knight in shining armour. The saviour. But not in Vicious. There are no good men in this story. Only a goal in mind and some principles that even sociopaths can live with.
Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens. Someone could be labeled a villain for trying to stop that person. Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.
I like to think that Vicious addresses the discourse between good and bad, the hero and the villain, and God and the Devil. And for Eliot Cardale, it seems that the lad struggles in the direction of Christianity and the Devil’s work—because for someone who respects and worships God, he appears to have no problem taking the life of another. Eli is what you'd call a character with a God complex. Victor, on the other hand, appears to reject the divine superior known as God, despite having a lower body count than Cardale. So, where do we draw the line between what is good, morally grey, and downright evil?
3.0
The book had absolutely no right on making me feel this way. Reading this made me feel like I was trespassing on Zauner’s mind– it’s so intimate and emotional. Lorde, Mitski, and Japanese Breakfast: the holy trinity of mommy issues (also artists you should listen to while reading Crying in H Mart, I swear.)