Because You Love to Hate Me: 13 Tales of Villainy

This is the book that pushed me over the proverbial edge, I think, when it comes to Young Adult books. I’d been reading a lot this year, trying to keep up with all the amazing new voices and stories being told, and had been looking forward to this one, but was terribly disappointed. (See also Taryn’s post on her blog, Novel Paradise, about out-growing the Young Adult genre, which echoes many feelings I have as well. She’s a model book blogger.)

The stories vary from dark origin stories for villains we don’t know yet, as well as retelling well-known stories from the villain’s perspective. In general, the unknown villains did better, but several retellings stood out as well. However, I didn’t enjoy nearly as many stories as I show more should have in an anthology of this length and with this many beloved authors.

Something that bothered me about this anthology as I was reading all the stories is that there wasn’t really a way to understand what I had read aside from those YouTube book reviewers, called BookTubers, who went on to explain their requests or to riff awkwardly, and repetitively, on the theme of villainy. Stronger editing was required and sorely missed.

I also felt the lack of a note to accompany each story. A few stood well without notes, but might have enhanced my enjoyment, others would have greatly improved by an explanation from the author, or a comment from the editor. Even moving each author’s bio beside their story would have been an improvement. Perhaps that’s not as common in anthologies as I believed.

But before you think I didn’t enjoy any of this, I’m going to talk a little bit about my favorites. If you only read some of these stories, these are the ones I recommend:

Beautiful Venom by Cindy Pon (author of WANT) was a retelling of Medusa set in classical china, where the injustice of her situation at the hands of a vengeful goddess is made very clear. Pon not only has a touch for flair in a historical setting, but she can wring drama and foreboding in very few words. This is part of the reason WANT was such a great novel, and I can’t wait to read her other books. She’s got a good hand for short-form fiction as well, as evidenced here. Possibly the best story in the entire book. (cw: non-graphic rape, as per the original legend)

Marigold by Samantha Shannon was a delight that interwound popular beliefs about fae in Victorian england with one of my favorite poetic figures in a stunning tale that empowers the female subject of the story. The strength of storytelling here makes me so hopeful for The Bone Season.

Death Knell by Victoria Schwab was a fantastic story that stood so well on it’s own, and I dearly hope that fans of Schwab, of psychopomps and darkness seek this one out.

The last story in this anthology, Sera by Nicola Yoon, was completely unexpected. I’ve read some of Everything Everything and had nothing bad to say about the style but was not going to read it anyway. To say I was blown away by Sera is not an exaggeration. This story made my jaw-drop and felt like some of the best writing in this book. I still am not quite sure what to make of it.

The Blood of Imuriv by Renee Ahdieh was a good start for this anthology, and Ahdieh is almost as beautiful a writer here as in her Wrath & Dawn duology. She’s a master of imagery and characterization, but this felt a little underdeveloped to me, and was the surest sign that I would not be enjoying this anthology as much as I’d hoped. (I also seem to have made a note that some of my enjoyment was tainted by the accompanying text which was oddly unfunny.) This may have also been the only sci-fi story, and I would love to see Ahdieh do more like it.

You, You, It’s All About You by Adam Silvera was a refreshingly dark story among some softer punches, but it felt like an origin story that should have led on to a novella or series. The preface to an unconventional hero’s novel, perhaps.

The trouble for me with the bulk of these stories, is that they could have used more development, they seemed ambiguous in their evil or their direction. Sarah Enni delighted with her world-building but there seemed to be so much more left to say. Marissa Meyer’s Sea Witch retelling was good but the protagonist was a bit too blind to her flaws, making me worry about how much I’ll enjoy her Lunar Chronicles. There were too many small pieces to enjoy and not enough solidly good stories among those remaining.

And if you’re wondering why I haven’t mentioned the BookTuber interludes (for lack of a better name) it’s because most of them aren’t worth mentioning and a few even detracted from the enjoyment of their accompanying stories. Worth reading are Sasha Alsberg’s 411 for Villains which was clever and a good conceit, and The Bad Girls’ Guide to Villainy by Steph Sinclair and Kat Kennedy which was funny and pointed. Kudos for the idea of pairing Authors with BookTubers though, as this greatly helps marketing the book.

I think you’re a fan of a specific author, you may want to read their story, but as a whole anthology about villains, I was sorely disappointed. I guess I just wish there had been a little more killing than there was. show less

Anthologies are hard in general because of their nature. This one is harder still because, for some unfathomable reason, they also included 'essays' from 'BookTubers.'

The Blood of Imuriv: Two siblings bicker over chess and one kills the other. /yawn

Jack: Surprisingly good for the subject matter. The incongruence between floating castle and LCD TVs took me out of the story a bit but the twist was really well done.

Gwen and Art and Lance: Arthurian legend, only set in a modern high school and told entirely through the medium of text messages. Its implies that Gwen is the villain here, but its mostly just high school drama. It did a decent job telling the story within the framing device, but it was a chore to read through that device for show more an extended period.

Shirley & Jim: Guys? You can write books for young adults that don't take place in high school. Young adults will still like it. This one is a genderbent Sherlock Holmes set in, yup, high school. Except it isn't really Sherlock Holmes - it lacks all the story beats and mystery, it lacks all the personality, it lacks everything besides the name. Which was slightly changed.

The Blessing of Little Wants: Now this is what I'm talking about. Solid story, good world building in a short amount of time, complex characters.

The Sea Witch: Essentially a re-telling of the Little Mermaid in which Ariel and Ursula are one in the same. Super predictable, but wasn't scared to have a villain be villainous.

Beautiful Venom: Medusa, but Asian. I liked the shift to an explicitly non-white protagonist and novel setting for the myth. The protagonist doesn't really move the plot along, though - there's very few actions or choices on her part. Rape is also a plot device.

Death Knell: This reminded me a lot of The Slow Regard of Silent Things, which is not a compliment. It was Artsy. It was Deep. It was Twee. I don't really get any villainy in this.

Marigold: Erl-Queen retelling in 19th Century London. Pretty solid as well.

You, You, Its All About You: High-schooler turned drug lord. There is no damn reason to write this in second person like you're making a Geocities page for an adoptable. I would have loved this in first or third person.

Julian Breaks Every Rule: More high school drama. But that aside, I liked how Julian's 'powers' are ambiguous and you can't tell if they are legit, much like you can't really tell how reliable of a narrator he is. I didn't love the 4th-wall breakage but that was a minor annoyance.

Indigo & Shade: Nothing new or of substance. Stilted.

Sera: Interesting take on the birth of a God(des) of War.

Now let's talk about the BookTubers. They did two things in/for the book: 1) Provide a writing prompt for an author, and 2) Write an essay. A lot of the prompts were really specific and didn't give the authors a lot of wiggle room to work in - it felt less like a prompt for a themed anthology and more of a "I have an excuse to make an author write fiction for me!" Similarly, the essays were largely insipid. They felt like they could have been plucked from a Buzzfeed clickbait quiz. They were completely awful, with humor that fell utterly flat, insights the level of a book report from a CliffNotes Study Guide, and often little to nothing to do with the short story itself. The book is much, much weaker for their inclusion, hence 2 stars instead of 3-4. It just comes off as BookTubers taking an opportunity to piggyback on creatives to self-promote. show less

All in all I thought this was an excellent collection of stories where we got to see more of some villains. However, some of the stories did leave me a little disappointed, or (assuming the whole point was to make us question how quick we are to label someone a villain or if we can relate to them) I still found the "villain" character to be easily dislikable.

In theory I should have at least liked this book. A collection of short stories written in the POV of a villain as they commit acts of villainy. In the wise words of Moriarty: "Every story needs a good old fashioned villain." I agree but the added commentary from the bootubers, book bloggers etc. did nothing for me.

What shocked me the most were little inconsistencies with the actual short story of some authors. I get that it was a fun little exercise but that's no excuse for skimping out on a few readings before handing it in to the publisher. But the two that I actually liked were Nicola Yoon's and Marissa Meyer's challenge stories. It's not just because I like the two authors but both the challenge and writing styles they had worked show more perfectly for what I know they are capable of. Others were obviously hindered by the weird AF stories the "book influencer" wanted them to write.

Sadly this collection was not for me but maybe it'll be entertaining for someone else. show less

I wanted to love this book so freaking much, you have no idea how much i wanted to love it
This is breaking my poor villainish heart into million pieces

The title is so beautiful , the cover is so beautiful , the concept is so beautiful , the pages inside are so beautiful ....

Some are stories, the others are more villain discussion, the discussions are pretty spot on and more entertaining than the stories, but not that great to be honest.

The ones that stood up for me the most are:

The Evil Vaccine by Christine Riccio, It made me laugh too much, it's perfect.

Dear Death by Jesse George, so beautifully written! I enjoyed every heartbreaking moment i had while reading it, it's my favorite in this book.

So I only liked two stories, But the show more other ones had nice passages, yet that's not an excuse.

This isn't very bad to be honest, but I'm very disappointed because i expected waaay more. I was expecting more evil things perhaps

would i recommend it? no (maybe yes if you really like pretty covers) show less

This is 13 short stories not anthologies by 13 various writers and 13 BookYoutubers - in one book.
I chose to read as I saw it being picked up by many reviewers and gaining various reviews and it was highly marketed read. I was interested to read the short stories and see how the co-operation took place - not because those were created by well known BookTubers, but because, i was genuinely interested to read some short stories and read the writing.

I don't have an exact explanation - I got stuck by the first few stories as they were slow and I felt bored and I have been dragging the reading for a month. There are some good stories inside and as these 13 are all written by various writers I am sorry to admit - enjoyed only 4 of them, less show more than a half, not counting the BookTubers tales:
*The Blood of Imuriv by Renee Ahdieh;
*Gwen and Art and Lance by Soman Chainani;
*Julian Breaks Every Rule by Andrew Smith;
*Sera by Nicola Yoon;

Having read the stories I am interested to find more books written by Andrew Smith and Soman Chainani - these are new to me.

I am surprised to like the story by Nicola Yoon as her other novels I didn't enjoy and would have probably not picked up next book, well, now I am not so sure, which is great!

Renee Ahdieh - I started but didn't finish one of the last series written by her, but not because I wasn't interested but because I could not extend my library loan :D

Give a try to read the stories yourself, you may like them! show less

As usual with anthologies, there were a few standouts but most fell short. Individual ratings and notes below.

Ahdieh: 1 star. Jarring back-and-forth writing where dialogue doesn't match action/thought, poor dialogue, sentence fragments disrupting flow.
Riccio: 4 stars. Delightfully amusing.

Ameriie: 4.5 stars. Really well written, great voice, food for thought (kind of literally), complex characterization/worldbuilding that uses and subverts the usual storytelling lens (i.e. root for the hero) perfectly.
Burke: 4 stars. Good breakdown of Ameriie's story elements.

Chainani: 2 stars. Annoying format and characters. The manipulation of information by Gwen took a while to come across but was the most interesting part when it did.
Lane: 3 stars. show more Not much to it, not much to say.

Dennard: 3 stars. Okay ride but no context to the big question of why Shirley is writing this letter to Jean instead of talking to her.
Alsberg: 3 stars. Semi-humorous.

Enni: 3 stars. Decent worldbuilding, but confusing "reveal" and what that means for re-interpreting the beginning of the story.
Lee: 3 stars. Not much to it, not much to say.

Meyer: 4 stars. Nice example of rooting for the antagonist despite them doing evil things.
Herdt: 3 stars. Not much to it, not much to say.

Pon: Nicely told, nice to have Asian retelling of a myth, but nothing new.
Alderson: 1 star. It praised the story as if it was original when overall it's not.

Schwab: 4.5 stars. Really well written. Great example of showing a mystery and world construction to the reader throughout the story. Occasionally creepy, especially because it's death. It worked that common fear of death into the reader/story relationship really well.
George: 2 stars. I could tell the author felt deeply about the topic on a personal level, but it didn't add anything regarding the story.

Shannon: 3.5 stars. Well written, lovely fairy world vibe in descriptions, but still a slight "so what?" at the end.
Perusse: 3.5 stars. Nice mini discussion on feminism and folklore.

Silvera: Decently written and intriguing world, but didn't get anything from it.
Feeney: 2. Not much to it, not much to say.

Smith: Felt like a genuine teenage boy voice but pointless story.
Lemay: 2 stars. Not much to it, not much to say.

Tucholke: 3 stars. Well written, great atmosphere, but the ending really didn't fit for me.
Atkinson: 1.5 stars. Interesting ideas on villainy but presented in a confusing organization.

Yoon: 1 star. Pointless backstory with no present meaning.
Sinclair: 1.5 stars. The humorous attempt fell flat. Very one-dimensional take on feminist villainy. show less