Editors Reads Verdict
A worthy sequel that expands the world without losing what made Vicious essential: Marcella is one of Schwab's most commanding creations — a villain who understands what she is and owns it completely — and the converging storylines deliver a genuinely satisfying payoff.
What We Loved
- Marcella Riggins is one of Schwab's most commanding creations — a villain who owns what she is completely
- The multi-POV structure is handled with the same cool architectural precision as Vicious
- Expands the ExtraOrdinary world without losing what made the first book essential
- The ending delivers something genuinely surprising — hope, in the most unexpected of places
Minor Drawbacks
- The five-year gap between Vicious and this publication means some of the first book's freshness has worn off
- Three simultaneous storylines means each thread gets less space than it might deserve
- EON as an institutional antagonist is less compelling than the personal antagonism of Vicious
Key Takeaways
- → A villain with no ideology beyond the personal is in some ways more honest than one wrapped in religious justification
- → Power without accountability becomes violence without limit — Marcella's arc demonstrates this clearly
- → The most interesting sequels expand the world's moral questions rather than just escalating the stakes
- → Survival is not the same as justice — the people who make it through are not necessarily the ones who deserved to
| Author | V.E. Schwab |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Tor Books |
| Pages | 496 |
| Published | September 25, 2018 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fantasy, Thriller, Dark Fiction, Superhero Fiction |
Vengeful Review
Five years is a long time to wait for a sequel, and Vengeful arrives knowing that expectation is a burden. V.E. Schwab’s strategy is to expand rather than simply continue: the world of ExtraOrdinaries gets bigger, the moral questions get more complicated, and a new character arrives who immediately contends for the most memorable figure in the series.
Marcella Riggins’s power is entropy — she can cause things to decay and collapse with a touch. She discovers this ability after her husband, a mid-level crime boss, tries to have her killed because she knew too much. That she survives and he does not is the beginning of Marcella’s education in what she is capable of and what she intends to do with it. Unlike Victor, who would prefer to operate invisibly, or Eli, who wraps his violence in religious justification, Marcella is entirely transparent about her motivations: she wants power and recognition, she has been underestimated her entire life, and she is finished with that. There is something almost refreshing about a villain with no ideology beyond the personal.
The multi-POV structure is more complex than Vicious, tracking Victor’s continued evasion of EON (the government’s ExtraOrdinary capture unit), Eli’s captivity and the bargain he’s offered, and Marcella’s rapid ascent through organised crime. Schwab juggles these threads with considerable skill, and the convergence in the final act is managed with the same cool architectural precision that made the first book’s timeline-switching so effective.
Vengeful is a confident, ambitious sequel. It completes the Villains duology with something genuinely surprising: hope, of a kind, in the most unexpected of places.
Reading Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "Vengeful" about?
Five years after Vicious, Victor Vale is still evading capture and hunting Eli, while a new ExtraOrdinary named Marcella Riggins rises with destruction at her fingertips and an agenda of her own. Three storylines converge in Schwab's expansion of the Villains universe — a world where everyone with powers has reasons to use them.
What are the key takeaways from "Vengeful"?
A villain with no ideology beyond the personal is in some ways more honest than one wrapped in religious justification Power without accountability becomes violence without limit — Marcella's arc demonstrates this clearly The most interesting sequels expand the world's moral questions rather than just escalating the stakes Survival is not the same as justice — the people who make it through are not necessarily the ones who deserved to
Is "Vengeful" worth reading?
A worthy sequel that expands the world without losing what made Vicious essential: Marcella is one of Schwab's most commanding creations — a villain who understands what she is and owns it completely — and the converging storylines deliver a genuinely satisfying payoff.
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