The characters are all presented at first as archetypes (hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue and extra). Taking this into consideration, there is no surprise that the last actors standing are very ambitious, easily envious and passionate about what they are doing.
From the first college year to the fourth, the students are constantly selected and sifted out until only the very best remain which obviously creates a highly competitive environment. Their performances always came alive on the page and the building tension made the story so thrilling and easy to follow. They live and breathe Shakespeare’s works, they even speak in Shakespearean-style which makes other characters find them odd and some readers might even consider them way too pretentious, but nonetheless, I enjoyed being a part of their world. Rio has a vast knowledge on Shakespeare and it shows as he almost becomes omnipresent in the novel, orchestrating from behind the scenes everything that happens in the lives of these seven young actors. You could say that the novel is constantly trying to find an answer to the debate whether art imitates life or life imitates art more. Likewise, the reader has a hard time understanding what’s real and what is not. The characters are always so focused on their performances, so much that at times they are having a hard time distinguishing between their thoughts, their emotions, their motivations, and those of the characters they are playing on stage. The thing I loved the most about this book is how art bleeds incessantly into reality. If We Were Villains is the story of seven actors who are very close to graduating an elite college and achieving all of their ambitions when tragedy suddenly strikes. “For someone who loved words as much as I did, it was amazing how often they failed me.”
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