If We Were Villains - M.L. Rio

I recommend If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio to just about everyone I talk to about books. At the moment, I think my copy is on its fourth loan and I’ve only had it since December 2023.

It makes my top 10 books of all time in part due to its subject matter. It tells the story of seven Shakespeare students at an arts college, and includes both blatant references to Shakespeare’s work, and more nuanced plot similarities. The cadence of this story is both poetic and quick, which is a combination I have yet to find again. For such a brief novel, it will burn itself into your brain. It consumed me so much I had to reread it just a month after I finished it the first time.

I have high hopes that M.L. Rio’s next novel, The Graveyard Shift, will prove just as masterful.