M. L. Rio has worked in bookstores and theaters for years and holds a master's degree in Shakespeare studies from King's College London. If We Were Villains is her first novel. You can find her online at mlrio.com.
Enter the players. There were seven of us then, seven bright young things with wide precious futures ahead of us. Until that year, we saw no farther than the books in front of our faces. On the day Oliver Marks is released from jail, the man who put him there is waiting at the door. Detective Colborne wants to know the truth, and after ten years, Oliver is finally ready to tell it. A decade ago: Oliver is one of the seven young Shakespearean actors at Dellecher Classical Conservatory, a place of keen ambition and fierce competition. In this secluded world of firelight and leather-bound books, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But in their fourth and final year, good-natured rivalries turn ugly, and on opening night real violence invades the students' world of make-believe. In the morning, the fourth-years find themselves facing their very own tragedy, and their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, each other, and themselves that they are innocent.
To start the review, I want to say how masterfully I believe Rio utilizes Shakespeare and the dramatic format throughout the novel. Having read and engaged with all the plays performed by the characters in the novel (Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and King Lear), I quite enjoyed their heavy presence. Other Shakespearean plays are referenced, all of it done in a skillful way to make the prose feel intelligent and sometimes pretentious, as dark academia always is. The way Shakespeare is also used to reflect the characters' inner monologues and even foreshadow upcoming events is smart, and fun to read, especially since I have this intimate knowledge of the texts used. However, I'm not surprised that some find it grating, as it can be rather pretentious and grating after a while.
Dark academia is such a tricky genre. Parts brilliant and haunting, and other parts pretentious and brutal, I believe If We Were Villains is an average example of a book that is able to combine all of those elements. With seven different characters, all typecast to a specific role, and a horrible fate for them, Rio spends a lot of time developing those characters in the world they are in, namely their school. Most of the focus is on Richard, James, Oliver, and Meredith; sometimes, Filippa, Wren, and Alexander fall completely by the wayside in the favor of the first four. Despite all seven of them chafing against their typecast, Rio doesn't allow any of them any room to prove they're different from what their acting instruction believes them to be. Still, they can find ways to surprise us, and Rio is able to build an intense story of murder and secrets in her examination of their characters. However, there was a lot of potential for the story to be dirtier, more complex, full of more secrets and betrayals, than it actually was. Ultimately, this book falls under the weight of its potential, not living up to it in favor of spending too much time examining specific characters instead of creating the best, most intense and interesting story possible.
*The following paragraphs will delve into details that will be spoilers. Please read at your own risk.*
Unfortunately, I found If We Were Villains to be predictable and problematic, especially regarding the "whodunnit" storyline. I guessed the murderer in Oliver's retelling of the night of the murder, and at no point between that retelling and the revelation was there any evidence to contradict my prediction. Because of this, I wouldn't really consider the novel a thriller, or a mystery, in the way actual thrillers and mysteries provide a type of suspense or mystery around the revelation of the murderer. As far as the evidence goes, Oliver only uncovers it because he is cleaning different areas of the school. He only gets this job because his parents have pulled a fast one on him: in order to get his younger sister well from her eating disorder, his parents will no longer be able to pay his tuition. After a complete lack of compassion for his younger sister's wellbeing—although the frustration towards his parents is completely understandable—Oliver is tasked with cleaning the school to keep his spot, which is how he finds the evidence, but I found this whole plot point to be unnecessary. As one of the evidence pieces is already in Oliver's own room, I found it be an unnecessary addition, or one that could have been executed much better, especially taking into account the insensitivity towards his sister's eating disorder.
As a final point, and the most important one, I am absolutely baffled by the relationship between James and Oliver. It is incredibly underdeveloped, especially for what the ending is supposed to be. It later comes to pass that Oliver is in love with James, which is why he sacrifices 10 years of his life to go to prison and take the fall for him. However, the only two moments during the book we get any understanding of this is when James shows up at Oliver's house over Thanksgiving, and two separate instances of Oliver getting inexplicably jealous of Wren or Meredith when James acts passionately with them. The relationship between Oliver and James wasn't developed any further, which was incredibly frustrating, because I wanted to believe in their ending and in their supposedly huge passion. I could not believe that they were in love, because I couldn't believe that Oliver would go to prison and take such a big fall for a relationship that we so severely underdeveloped. If someone is going to go to prison for someone else, the passion between those two people needs to undeniably be on the page, and the fact of the matter is it wasn't, making the ending unsatisfying, and unearned.
M. L. Rio can write an entertaining and addictive story, that's for sure, but with so many plot holes and unresolved questions about plot points, I have a hard time rating this one any higher than a neutral 3. I hope she does write more in this genre, as she does have the atmospheric element and character examinations down, but just a bit more passion between characters and explosive storyline would go a long way. Until then, you can find her online at mlrio.com.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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