Book Review: V.E. Schwab’s ‘Victorious’ is an Exquisite Conclusion to her Sci-Fi Villains series, and Worth the Wait
Is Victorious by V.E. Schwab, the finale to her Villains series, worth the read? It gets a resounding yes from me. It’s a chonker, but I couldn’t put it down. If you read Vicious and Vengeful, and thought that was going to be the end of the story, you’re not alone. Earlier this year, I was ecstatic to find out we were going to be getting a third book in the series. Now, this is nothing like Schwab’s other books. You won’t find the poetic, quotable writing from The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue in this series, but if you’re a fan of X-men and villain origin stories, I think you’ll love this series. This third book does pick up where book three leaves off, but it’s told non-chronologically. There’s a series of ‘countdown’ chapters, as well as what’s happening in the present. It does take a bit to get used to the constant time jumping and the many POVs, but it makes the story itself super fast paced. And considering it clocks in at just under 600 pages, it didn’t feel like a long read at all. Schwab even made me like some characters I absolutely loathed in the previous books. I swear she’s a master at characters. If you enjoy sci-fi that feels believable, and like it could be reality, I think you’ll love this series.
Some minor spoilers below…
Things to Know:
Book three in a series
Superpowers in our world
Multi-POV
Morally gray characters
Mind control
Sci-fi
We start off with Victor attempting to figure out how to ‘fix’ the part of him that’s broken when he came back. And wow, is it a journey. I LOVE his character so much though, and while he’s still super callous most of the time, he still cares about Syd and Mitch.
I did feel like bringing basically everyone back was a little annoying. I think I just loathed Eli so much, so I was so annoyed when he was brought back. haha That’s more of a me issue though. And to be honest, he always brings a lot to the story.
Gabriel is not really a surprising villain. I knew what he was going to turn into the second he was introduced as a character, so nothing he did was shocking. However, he does make a good foil to Eli and Victor.
I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I actually liked June in this book! WHAT?! Is she still unhinged? Yeah. But I also felt like we got a lot more of her story in this book, and I loved it.
Syd and Mitch I was stressed for the entire book, but I absolutely LOVE these two and the dog, of course. I’m trying to keep this as spoiler-free as possible, but let’s just say, I’m satisfied with how this turned out.
I’d absolutely recommend this series for readers who love sci-fi that’s still grounded in our world, and they probably grew up loving the dynamic between Professor X and Magneto. Can I say this has a happy ending? Not completely, but everything is as it should be.
As per usual, I did an immersive read with my physical book (TY Tor!) and the audiobook, which I have to give a 10/10 to. I loved the narration. If you want to try out the audiobook, you can find it on Audible or Libro.fm (ProTips: Audible is 99 cents/mo for three months (3 books for $2.97) right now AND you can get two free audiobooks on Libro.fm with the code SWITCH right now).
Favorite Quotes from ‘Victorious’:
“It was easy to be brave, when you thought you were invincible.”
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“___ crouched over the nearest corpse, plucking weapons from the dead agent’s belt like a magpie picking over shiny tokens.”
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