Amerie

Leave it to the heroes to save the world--villains just want to rule the world. In this unique YA anthology, thirteen acclaimed, bestselling authors team up with thirteen influential BookTubers to reimagine fairy tales from the oft-misunderstood villains' points of view. These fractured, unconventional spins on classics like "Medusa," Sherlock Holmes, and "Jack and the Beanstalk" provide a behind-the-curtain look at villains' acts of vengeance, defiance, and rage--and the pain, heartbreak, and sorrow that spurned them on. No fairy tale will ever seem quite the same again! Featuring writing from . . . Authors: Renée Ahdieh, Ameriie, Soman Chainani, Susan Dennard, Sarah Enni, Marissa Meyer, Cindy Pon, Victoria Schwab, Samantha Shannon, Adam Silvera, Andrew Smith, April Genevieve Tucholke, and Nicola Yoon BookTubers: Benjamin Alderson (Benjaminoftomes), Sasha Alsberg (abookutopia), Whitney Atkinson (WhittyNovels), Tina Burke (ChristinaReadsYA blog and TheLushables), Catriona Feeney (LittleBookOwl), Jesse George (JessetheReader), Zoë Herdt (readbyzoe), Samantha Lane (Thoughts on Tomes), Sophia Lee (thebookbasement), Raeleen Lemay (padfootandprongs07), Regan Perusse (PeruseProject), Christine Riccio (polandbananasBOOKS), and Steph Sinclair & Kat Kennedy (Cuddlebuggery blog and channel).

13 Tales of Villainy

Because You Love to Hate Me

Emi Gilmore 

3.384/5 stars

Villains, the deliciously wicked. We love to hate them and they hate to be loved, if only because being hated frees them from having to be good.
I read this book solely because of Victoria Schwab, even postponing my weekly watch of one of the greatest shows, The Bachelorette, to read it, so if that's not showing you how dedicated I am to my favorite author, I don't know what will?

I think to celebrate this villain anthology, I have decided to include a GIF of my favorite "villain" aka angsty prince turned nicer angsty Fire Lord

 

This book was a hit or miss for me. Some of the stories I absolutely loved, most of them I had neutral or negative opinions of. A lot of the stories did not feel villainous at all, while others made me wanna sleep with one eye open. In the end, I decided just to find my average rating and rate from there. I think my favorite stories were Victoria Schwab's (of course), Andrew Smith's, and Andrew Silvera's, but the biggest surprise for me was Cindy Pon's. If you only read one short story from this, I would highly recommend the one Cindy Pon wrote. 

I think should discuss, real quick, is that a huge part of this book is the presence of Booktubers. I've seen some reviews address the controversy, and I feel like I should mention it as well. 

I'm not a writer, nor do I ever want to be a writer, but there are a lot of writers who struggle to just get their works picked up by an agent, and many of them never do, but these thirteen individuals who post reviews on the internet get to bypass the struggle of getting a piece of work published? I mean, I post reviews on the internet? Where's my name in a book? It does seem quite unfair. But, at the same time, many of those booktubers work hard to create quality content and put themselves out on the internet in a way I never could, so while they didn't necessarily work hard in publishing-a-book-wise, I believe they did work hard in other ways. 

I also don't believe it's right to tear down someone else's accomplishments just because you think they don't deserve it. 

However, I don't find the booktubers really added anything to the story other than the prompt they supplied. While some of the prompts were great for authors to work with, others not so much. And a bad prompt could really damage an author's story. Their small pieces of writing that followed the author's stories were almost a waste of paper. It was just them analyzing the story for me, telling me what to think about the plot or a character or their actions and I don't really appreciate that. I much rather analyze what happened myself, thank you very much, because everyone analyzes things differently. I ended skimming post of their content, as I didn't find it important. 

But let's just go into reviews of the short stories, shall we: 

The Blood of Imuriv
by Renee Ahdieh, prompt from Christine Riccio/PolandbananasBOOKS
4/5 stars 
I love Renee Ahdieh, so it's not a surprise to me that I loved her part in this book. However, I do think this story had the unfortunate luck of having to be a short story. There was so much history and politics that had to be condensed to just a few pages it took away from the overall understanding of the story. The plot was so interesting and the world so unique, I got myself invested and then it ended. I want an entire 400 page novel in my hands by yesterday, Renee, please and thank you. 

Jack
by Ameriie, prompt from Tina Burke/The Lushables 
1.25/5 stars
I've never heard of Ameriie before, even though her name is the biggest on this cover, but even from her chapter, I don't think I want to read anything else by her. Her writing and story, in my opinion, reminded me of a high schooler's creative writing project. Maybe it was the weird ass prompt she got, as I don't Jack and the Beanstalk can ever be cool, but she could have made it work. Instead, we got a protagonist I didn't care for and unnecessary pop culture references that didn't work. Easily my least favorite story in this entire book. Next, please. 

Gwen and Art and Lance
by Soman Chainani, prompt from Samantha Lane/Thoughts on Tomes
1.75/5 stars
This could have been such a cool af story, as the prompt was King Arthur meets Hades and Persephone, but instead, it was just high school drama sprinkled with more high school drama. It wasn't even villainous. It was literally just an egocentric girl pining over two guys who are too good for her. And the entire thing was told in text messages. Just no. I'll pass.

Shirley & Jim
by Susan Dennard, prompt from Sasha Alsberg/Abookutopia
1.5/5 stars
I have never read or seen Sherlock Homes. I know absolutely nothing about him except he's a detective and he's hooking up with some dude named Watson and they wanna go back to elementary school or something? I'm assuming Jim is some sort of villain but I don't even know. But anyways, I probably couldn't care less about this story.

The Blessing of Little Wants
by Sarah Enni, prompt from Sophia Lee/Thebookbasement
 2.5/5 stars 
Who is Sarah Enni? Why is she a featured author in this book? I looked at her Goodreads page, and all that is featured under her written books is this book right here. But, even if she's not as published of an author as others featured in this anthology, she actually wrote a story with more depth and plot then most of the other stories in this thing. While I wasn't too invested in everything that happened, after the mess of the past three stories I embraced this with open arms. Even if I didn't understand fully what was going on? That ending was confusing af and how did any of this have anything to do with villains???? The main character just travels to some island by boat and kills something that I'm (view spoiler)[ 99% sure is a figment of her imagination.  (hide spoiler)]

The Sea Witch
by Marissa Meyer, prompt from Zoe Herdt/ReadbyZoe
4.5/5 stars 
Finally, we are getting good here, but that's no surprise from Marissa Meyer, veteran author and seemingly amazing person. This is the kind of story I was expecting when I started this book. We had a plot! And motive! And intrigue! And love! And villainous actions. The entire plot of this short story was what if the Sea Witch from the Little Mermaid fell in love too, but killed her love interest. And it was so good. Sooo freaking good. At times I was a little concerned it was a little too similar to another Marissa Meyer book, 
  Heartless
, but I feel like eventually it branch off into its own story. I like to thank Marissa Meyer and Zoe Herdt for giving me hope that this anthology won't be all horrible. 

Beautiful Venom
by Cindy Pon, prompt from Benjamin Alderson/BenjaminofTomes 
5/5 stars
 Trigger warning: (not graphic) rape scene 
Ummmm I have never read anything by Cindy Pon before, but I am now quickly adding all her books to my TBR because I am just amazed at how much I loved her writing and her imagination. This was a villainous retelling about Medusa and it followed the origin myth very well, but it also explored rape culture and victim blaming and how utterly harmful they are.  Every f*cking person needs to go read this right now. 

Death Knell
by Victoria Schwab, prompt from Jesse George/JessetheReader
5/5 stars
I was starting to feel like this was never going to happen? This entire story is the only reason I wanted to read this book. You're the best Victoria. Keep doing you.
And this story is so Victoria? It is covered from page to page in her lyrical writing. So breathtakingly beautiful and meaningful. It's about how life is short and death is not outrun-able. I'm in love. I'm incredibly biased, as I'm a self-proclaimed #1 Victoria Schwab fan, but this is the best story so far. 

Marigold
by Samantha Shannon, prompt from Regan Perusse/PeruseProject
3.75/5 stars 
I liked this on. I'm not sure if I loved it, but I did like it. It was full of folklore and children getting kidnapped. I especially loved the twist at the end (view spoiler)[ that shows that not every girl is sitting around waiting for his knight in shining armor.  (hide spoiler)] However, I just wasn't fully engaged in every aspect of this one. 

You, You, It's All About You
by Adam Silvera, prompt from Catriona Feeney/LittleBookOwl
4.25/5 stars 
Adam Silvera seems like the coolest guy in all of existence. So is he taking applications for a new best friend? Because I have a resume that I'd love to send him. Anyways, he came through like he always does and presented us a solid piece of writing about a teenage drug lord. Not only was it funny at times, but the main character is probably the villain in this book that scared me the most. She's twisted. I don't ever want to cross her path. Also, it's written in second person. What I've read of second person in the past has never gone well and I always end up hating it, but Adam pulls it off effortlessly in this. You go Adam! Please hire me to be your friend. 

Julian Breaks Every Rule
by Andrew Smith, prompt from Raeleen Lemay/Padfootandrongs07 
4.75/5 stars 
I didn't even realize Andrew Smith apart of this anthology until I got to his chapter and let me tell you, I was so freaking existed. 
  Winger
 is one of my favorite books of all time and I seriously don't talk about it enough, hence this not so subtle promotion of it. And his short story was everything I wanted it to be and more. It was soooo much an Andrew Smith novel. It's about a boy who can never do anything wrong and can wish almost everyone to death. Not only that, but its the funniest thing in this entire anthology. The only thing faulty about this is that it isn't a full legnth novel and that is such a shame. I never wanted it to end. I need more. 

Indigo and Shade
by April Genevieve Tucholke, prompt from Whitney Atkinson/WhittyNovels
1.75/5 stars 
Another author whom I'm just like, "Who?!?!" but she actually has books published which is cool. I thought this story might cool as well, as it was a beauty and the beast retelling, but I was beyond wrong. The plot was one I find to be quite overused, the narrator was uninteresting and annoying, and the ending was predictable. This one wasn't for me. 

Sera
by Nicola Yoon, prompt from Steph Sinclair and Kat Kennedy/Cuddlebuggery
3.5/5 stars 
I've always wanted to read a non-contemporary Nicola Yoon book and I think this might be the closest I get. Nicola Yoon is pure talents and I'm quite jealous. But while the writing is great, I don't know if I quite like this story. It's gender-flipped God of War, which is something I know nothing about. And I wish it stayed a lot more focused on the present than the past. But Nicola's writing though. It's gorgeous.

Wendy M Holt

3.5 out of 5 stars. Wasn't as creepy/spooky as I had hoped but still enjoyed it.

Because You Love to Hate Me 13 Tales of Villainy

Reviews