Amanda Foody

This book was alright but not amazing, because the characters were not quite complex and villainous enough to carry the story.
They were all interesting, but I felt like their feelings and motivations were revealed too early and through telling instead of showing. I would have liked their fears and plans to show through their actions as the book went on rather than summed up in their first chapter. Chapter 1 literally states that Alistair wants to survive, make his family proud, but most of show more all does not want to die and have his brother grieve for him. Great motivation, but this would have been so much better if it was shown instead of summed up.
And for a competition for trained villains and killers, all of them had too many qualms about actually killing. I wanted all four protagonists to be darker to live up to the title! The current story about four teens who are just scared and conflicted and dutiful to their families was not bad in any way, but this book was advertised as something else.

Then there's the tournament. It was the kind of plot and action I wanted, but I felt like I did not know enough about this game or its rules to be truly invested. What exactly does this magic do? How many varieties are there? What are the limits? What is the difference with High Magick? There are Relics and Landmarks whose function and importance I did fully understand until later in the book.

In general, I felt like this book had so much potential, but did not use all of it. This is a world in which there is press and a media spectacle? Isobel was chosen by newspapers, so clearly they have a big influence. There are jeans and punk music and commercial airlines. People nobody knows protest against this tournament. I was hoping all these elements would be integrated a bit more. And there is a book that is banned for drawing the higher government’s attention to the town. The excerpts of it were so great at setting the scene and the world! By the end I was more invested in the mystery of that book than anything else.
The Isobel and Alistair romance felt so dumb and forced? I might read book 2 if those two don't end up together. show less

All of Us Villains is everywhere being compared to The Hunger Games, but I was strongly reminded of Tamsyn Muir's The Locked Tomb series while reading. Granted, the plot is much closer to The Hunger Games, but the depth of the characters and world-building made me think far more of Muir's work.

There's quite a bit of set up in the early chapters, but events pick up quickly and soon I was racing through the pages to see what happened next. I'm greatly looking forward to the next show more instalment.

Received via NetGalley. show less

**received as an ARC from the publisher

I gave the Hunger Games a hard pass (both the books and the films) and couldn’t be bothered with the OG teen slaughter contest series, Japanese manga Battle Royale, so imagine my surprise when I gave this book a try and was immediately hooked. Apparently make it magic, make it goth, and I’m there (haha). Don’t get me wrong: the concept of a bunch of teeangers getting together to battle eachother to the death is still a deplorable plot device, but show more at least Foody and Herman gave their version a legitimate starting point that I was able to buy into - that of an ancient curse enacted to ensure the continuation and control over powerful magic resources. The lore behind their story is well built among the pocket community that is Ilvernath, artfully using ring-based spell- and cursework, playing up family legends, while paying homage to traditional magic lore, which brings the whole story to a crescendo as the young Champions begin to discover the secrets and magic tying the whole Blood Moon challenge together. Grounding the story is, of course, the group of Ilvernath’s teens chosen as Champions for their respective families, who provide a certain amount of realism for what could be a ridiculously frivolous narrative full of blood, gore, and violence. Sure, some of the Champions seem to fit perfectly into the “villain” category, but the authors do a solid job of giving the characters realistic motivations for their actions throughout the story, throwing in some solid emotional development (as expected with young protagonists), and keeping readers guessing as to who are the real villains throughout. The title really says it all, in my opinion, since all of the characters from Champions to citizens of Ilvernath have their moments of doubt (and fame); even we as readers become villains in our voluntary viewing of what is a horrific spectacle of potential death. But that’s the trick isn’t it? We can’t quite look away, even if we’re hoping for things to work out positively by the end of the novel... show less

I was lucky enough to get a sample of this book from NetGalley and Macmillan-Tom Doherty Associates.

I've just finished reading a sneak peek of All Of Us Villains, and my first thought is that I have to read the rest of the book. It’s also my second thought, my third, and well, you get the idea.

I’m not craving the rest of the book because authors Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman finished the sample with a cliffhanger. I know what will be happening next. I just have to come to terms show more with what just happened.

All Of Us Villains offers a cross between Harry Potter and Hunger Games, introducing seven magickal families who hold a tournament each Blood Moon to determine who will control high magick for the next 20 years. Each family picks a young member of their family to compete. The goal is to be the last champion standing. If more than one is still alive once the Blood Moon leaves, then the winner is the person who has spilled the most of their opponents’ blood. Kill or be killed.

We meet the families and their champions. Each has their own personal strengths and morbid strategies for grooming their champion. There’s no cookie-cutter champion, but individuals with family pride and different plans for bringing power to their family. Each chapter focuses on a different family/champion and paints a vivid picture of how these children have been trained to murder the other six. Dirty secrets are exposed to show just how much each family will sacrifice to win. Those sacrifices are deep and ruthless.

The sneak peek shows the preparations have been completed for the tournament. Yes, one reason I want to read the rest is so that I can read about the tournament events and find out the ultimate winner. The authors introduced their characters so deftly that there’s not one sticking out as a readers’ favorite. I don’t know which one I want to win because of how well these characters have been fleshed out. Each chapter unlocked a reason to support a different champion, which is delightfully unnerving. I’m eager to see who wins and how all of the families handle the aftermath.

Fans of magick and deadly competitions will breeze through the book. show less