by Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman
Rating: 4/5 ☀️
All of Us Villains is a twisting narrative full of strong, interesting characters and an amazing magic system. The book follows seven families in the elusive town of Ilvernath who name a champion every twenty years to compete in a tournament to the death, the prize being the control of a well of magick. It took me a bit to get into it, but once the tournament itself started, I found that I could not put the book down.
It was slow to start. There was a lot of talk about the characters being “villains”, particularly Alistair’s family, but I was not sure if they were really all that wicked unless their standard was like…tax evasion. There’s a moment in the first chapter where Alistair meets Isobel and is thrown off by how “cunning” she is, although all she did was what seemed to be a basic spell to figure out who he was, and that’s something anyone might do. I think my personal enjoyment was also hindered by an all-white main cast, especially since the rest of the town did seem relatively diverse, but at least there was queer representation within the main cast.
However, as the story went on, it really picked up. I loved Isobel’s voice in her chapters, and I surprisingly fell in love with Alistair. He actually ended up being my favorite, which I did not think would happen at all after the first chapters, but I think Hendry’s looming presence in the plot really helped. Regarding Alistair and Isobel’s romance, it was just done so well and I actually loved it. It was a bit instalove, but the entire time there was this feeling that it wouldn’t last, and it just made so much sense that they were using each other to escape from their reality and once they were facing the other champions, they fell apart. Something about them being a “in a kinder world” pairing absolutely owned me.
I didn’t really ship anything else, to be honest. There were definitely relationship dynamics which were better than others, but I don’t see any of them being endgame, other than maybe Briony and Finley (Finley, by the way, is absolutely amazing and owns my heart). I think Alistair and Gavin are being set up as a slow burn ship, and it would be so interesting, but it seems pretty one-sided thus far. Theoretically, the ship has everything I love and so I should love it, but I honestly did not like Gavin as a character that much, so it was hard to root for him along the way. It was unfortunate because it felt like he could have been fleshed out more, and his character was just going through the motions for his role but I didn’t know who he was beyond that. Every character goes out of the bounds of their archetype and defies it in some way, but Gavin was the underdog having a corruption arc since the beginning, and that’s all.
I know I pulled at a lot of flaws, but I genuinely really enjoyed reading this book. The modern setting mixed with the magic was so interesting, and overall, this was a fast-paced, action-packed, fantastical, and full of lots of great twists. I loved so many of the characters, and I ultimately loved where this book ended (I also need to mention that I am in love with Reid and I can’t wait to see more of him). I’m looking forward to the sequel, and I’m excited to see how this world develops next.
Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.
Sunglow Reads 