Murder of Crows discussion

If We Were Villains by M.L Rio

Summary:
Oliver Marks has just served ten years in jail - for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he's released, he's greeted by the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened a decade ago.
As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.

My thoughts:
It reads as a screenplay which is not a type of book I have experienced before, so that took some adjusting. However, it does make sense because the book is based around theater majors. Also, everyone speaks in poetry and to be honest, poetry has not always been my thing. My brain seems to focus on the rhythm and spacing of the words rather than what is trying to be said. That being said, I don’t think this would be a great book to listen to on Audible. Essentially what I’m saying is I’m not a fan of poetry/Shakespeare but skimming through that dialogue when they are performing is worth the rest of the book.

It is a very slow paced book in the beginning, but as it goes on it starts building. As I kept reading, it started to feel like the same idea as The Black Swan. Obviously they are different in that this book is about theater and The Black Swan is about ballet, but both of them are equally competitive and go to extremes to be on top, get the best part, etc. Once you get past the first fifty to seventy pages or so it really picks up and it doesn’t stop.

The characters are very well developed and not two dimensional at all which was so refreshing to see. They all had personalities that are different and not based on a stereotype (ie. the jock, the popular one, the emo one, etc.) but rather felt like they had a trait or a moral that really stood out and made them individuals of the group as a whole. For instance, I’ve never seen a character like James before. He says the honest truth with no regards of whether it is the appropriate time to say what was in his mind.

Staying along the lines of the well developed characters, they are real and raw. They talk about the torment in their heads about what happened and not like the usual “Ah yes, it was a casual Thursday afternoon when we all decided to kill someone. Now, we're terrified of being caught.” These characters are struggling in their daily lives after what they experienced; they have a newfound source of anxiety and now PTSD. In most books characters aren’t shown having these raw reactions. They just move on with their days so casually. Think of if you committed a murder or watched one take place. Would you be so calm and collected?

There is a point in the book that everyone is at their breaking point, and instead of immediately blowing up like I expected it to, the cracks of their lives began to form bit by bit. I thought this was so good because I feel like so many authors want to keep climbing on the action in the book, and to be honest I also thought this was the only way to make for a good book. However, this book goes to show that you can keep readers interested and anticipating the end with carefully crafted in between scenes.

The ending didn’t disappoint either. I thought we got the just of what happened and the last pages were just to tie everything up in a pretty bow. Boy was I thankfully wrong. Again another interesting ending that I’ve never seen before and it leaves you with so many thoughts (I know that is super vague but I don’t want to give anything away because it is such a good read).

The only reason I wasn’t able to give all five stars to this book is just because of the extensive use of poetry and how much the first fifty pages or so dragged on. Otherwise, I totally understand why this book blew up so fast (also the author’s first book, so congrats and I’m looking forward to more books).