Blood, bisexuality and breakdowns: the emotional stages of reading M. L. Rio's debut novel

*SPOILER ALERT*

I am emotionally drained.

Kicking off this blog with a review of M. L. Rio’s ‘If We Were Villains’, I have to give this book a 9.7/10. Strong start. This novel had everything I didn’t know I was looking for, and never before have I been so wonderfully unsatisfied. Of course, IWWV is certainly no undiscovered gem, becoming an international bestseller shortly after its publication in 2017. Nevertheless, I will strive to find something original to say about it here.

Well-written, fast-paced and completely gripping from the very first line, ‘If We Were Villains’ is a rare and entirely original take on the classic murder mystery. I feel like I lived every second of Oliver’s journey, and made every breakthrough with him (even the ones I totally knew were coming). Split between past and present, it somehow manages to surprise at every turn. Though it may seem a fairly obvious statement, every plot twist is perfectly unexpected. The way that the story is told through the protagonist in the present, relating his tale 10 years prior, gives us the confidence that we know how this account will end, despite having absolutely no clue. This makes it even more shocking when the plot twists follow Oliver into the present. I can only speak for myself, but I was completely thrown on my ass. I audibly gasped in the quiet car of the train (a capital offence in rural England) when I discovered that James had drowned (followed by some seriously snotty waterworks). This, however, was nothing compared to the emotional rollercoaster I faced a mere eight pages later, realising that this may not have been the case. The ambiguous and abrupt ending left me feeling all the feelings, but mainly frustration, heartbreak and hope.

I spent most of the novel gaslighting myself into thinking that I was imagining the tension between Oliver and Meredith, and then Oliver and James. Every crumb of chemistry kept me going until I gave up hope, and then along would come another sliiiiightly provocative phrase, and away we’d go.

Despite the novel being told through first-person narration, every character is satisfactorily explored, and none of the core seven players leave us feeling as though they are filler or lazily written. At least four of the seven have their own individual character arch, worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy. Alexander, Wren and Filippa remain somewhat of a mystery, their stories artfully hinted at, used to garnish the already fulfilling plot. Friendship, love, loss, violence and betrayal, through Rio’s characters we experience it all.

And throughout all of this, the novel is positively littered with homages to everybody’s favourite bard, the great William Shakespeare. Truthfully, I believe he would have loved it, even without the near constant quotations of his works. It made me feel as though I may be able to understand Shakespeare’s plays, despite what I feel is the almost universal experience of having been forced to take in Shakespeare at school and not getting it at all, thus giving up on the playwright entirely. Rio’s novel is both a tribute to the theatre, even formatting parts of the dialogue as though they are lines in a script and separating the book into Acts and Scenes, and a warning about the obsessive and desperately passionate nature of the arts.

To sum up, ‘If We Were Villains’ is totally melodramatic, chilling, intriguing, passionate, vivid, suspenseful, bloody, heartbreaking and utterly brilliant. I aggressively encourage anyone and everyone to pick up this book immediately and neither sleep nor eat until they have devoured it cover to cover. Easily the best thing I have read all year.