Opening Doorz

By Geneive D’Souza | Opening Doorz Editorial | April 17, 2024

Book Review: If We Were Villians
Author: M. L. Rio
Rating: 4/5

The Essence: The ending is expertly written. If one is not an avid Shakespeare reader, you may need to read up a little about the references and characters that are mentioned as you come across them. This, however, does not take away from the impact the story and the storytelling has as a whole, and the sudden, unexpected twist that the ending brings. 

If We Were Villains Book Review

M. L. Rio, in her debut novel, If We Were Villains, impeccably stitches together a story of a group of seven friends, all final-year theatre students at an exclusive and elite college that teaches only Shakespeare. The story introduces to us these theatre students, and the archetypal characters they usually play on stage: the tragic hero, the tragic villain, the king or conqueror, the temptress, the supporting role, or the foil. These characters that they play on stage bleed into their real-life persona. 

We may also be led to the question about the professors who kept casting them into these archetypes and roles, getting the students only used to a certain type of role, that mirrors their reality to a large extent at this point. Until one fateful day when things are upturned, the archetypes and the casting are shuffled, which leads to unbridled tension, and murder. 

Taking a slight detour from the book, If We Were Villians, we have Erving Goffman, an American social psychologist, sociologist, and writer. Goffman gives us a dramaturgical approach to studying the ‘Self’ in sociology, mainly through performance, where he treats the world as a stage. In Goffman’s world, everything we do is a performance of sorts while employing strategies of impression management that are employed to construct this performance of the ‘Self’. The frontstage and the backstage of life (that Goffman talks about, namely being public and private performances) of the characters in the book, are impacted by the roles they play onstage. 

Character Assassination 

We get to understand the characters with a certain kind of depth that is ingenious, with Rio strategically using the first-person narrative style, the narrator here being Oliver Marks; who is always the supporting character in any play, and never given the main spotlight. His job in any performance is to enhance the performance of the rest of the actors, to highlight the characteristics and attributes of their character through the absence of those in his own. 

It is also important to remember that the narrator is subjective, and for this reason, the reader also has an obscure view of what is transpiring due to certain pedestalizations and villainizations. This also ultimately makes the climax of the novel unexpected and amazing. 

Shakespeare, The Pivot of The Plot

Upon the first read, what springs to the eye first, is the dramatic structure of the novel. Rio divides the story into five acts, each with a prologue, followed by a couple of scenes, that mirror that of Shakespearean plays. Rio uses heavy and rich symbolism with the usage of the different plays of Shakespeare being enacted, namely Caesar, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, and references to other plays such as Hamlet and Macbeth when the characters are quoting lines or verses in their normal speech. 

There is not much more that can be revealed without giving away any spoilers. This symbolism that underlines the plot, however, creates a much deeper sense of appreciation for the writing of Rio, and the amount of plotting planning and thought that would have gone into this. 

The characters, throughout the book, keep quoting from various plays of Shakespeare, and this habit does not seem to be lost in present-day Oliver who keeps quoting Shakespeare even while narrating the truth; his explanation is, “You can justify anything if you do it poetically enough.” 

At a certain point, it does get a little frustrating when the reader is constantly having to re-read the lines to decode what the character is trying to say. Shakespeare could be considered their ‘inside’ language; it was how they made sense of the world and how they made sense of themselves and their emotions and how they communicated it. While slightly annoying, there is masterful thought behind each line, and the context within which the line exists, for which Rio deserves a pat on the back.

If We Were Villians Book Review: A Masterclass in Storytelling…

The plot and the narrative flow fluidly and are undisturbed. Even though the story keeps going back to present-day Oliver who has just been released from prison, for a murder he may or may not have committed, the essence of the narration of the past, of what happened, is not lost, and does not feel rudely interrupted. 

The book plays out well as a mystery; we get to know that the narrator, Oliver, was in prison for the murder of one of the seven friends. What we do not know from the start, is the how, and the why, and Rio guides the reader through these revelations at a brooding, yet steady pace. 

The ending is expertly written. If one is not an avid Shakespeare reader, you may need to read up a little about the references and characters that are mentioned as you come across them. This, however, does not take away from the impact the story and the storytelling has as a whole, and the sudden, unexpected twist that the ending brings. 

It is a conclusion, yet it does not feel like the end. Rio leaves the reader thinking about it for a long time to come.

Also Read: Hamnet Book Review: Shakespeare’s son Hamnet in Hamnet 

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