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3.5/5
Non-Fiction
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New Adult. Realistic Fiction. Mystery. Shakespeare. Dark Academia. Murder.
Rating: 4/5
Pages:
Started: 25 February 2023 [hold expired, did not finish]
Started: 14 May 2023
Finished: 17 May 2023
Summary:
Oliver is one of the seven seniors in the Shakespeare program at the Decheller Classical Conservatory, an elite performing arts school. Then there's James, his best friend, who usually plays the sidekick. And Alexander, who gets the conniving villain. Wren the ingenue, Meredith the alluring vixen. Filippa, the mysterious woman. And Richard, the hero or the villain, but always the most powerful character on stage --and off, much to the fury and worry of the rest of the students. Performing tragic pieces with so much passion and fervor begets passion and fervor in every aspect of life, and when one night Richard takes a drunken fall into the lake, the other six make the terrible decision to let him drown--and must learn to live with the consequences.
Ten years later, after his release from prison, Oliver tells the story of his time at Decheller, finally revealing the details of what actually happened to Richard and the other students during their fateful senior year.
Thoughts:
This was an incredibly fun book. It felt like Donna Tart's A Secret History but without the overwhelming ick of that book's middle hundred pages. It was gloriously dark academia, especially considering all the Shakespeare quotes intertwined with the scenes. All the characters were so passionate about Shakespeare, so obsessed with his works, that it made me really happy to read. The death and the mystery surrounding it was also quite entertaining. My prediction about how it ended was half-right, although that might be cancelled out by the fact that I am approximately sixty percent sure that I have, in fact, read this book before.
I liked the framing of the book, with the sections of present-day Oliver telling the story. It did take some of the suspense out of it, but it also made it less stressful, and the nostalgia of looking back at the college-dark-academia-close-friends joy made the book more impactful.
The characters were all quite interesting; last time I tried to read part of the book I got Alexander and James confused, which luckily didn't happen this time. It was interesting that all the characters were stereotypes and, at the same time, pretty rounded in my opinion---with the exception of Oliver. He was fine, a good narrator and an interesting person, but my god he did not have much character aside from loyalty and self-doubt. The dude was honestly a bit unsettling for that reason.
The other thing that I had a problem with was James and Oliver's relationship. They were completely in love, but we never actually saw them interact in a way that felt obsessed, and especially not in a way that felt reciprocated? It felt very telling-and-not-showing to me. Oliver kept saying they were best friends, they were super close, but I think the lack of that closeness being actually shown through conversations was one of the weakest points of the book.
But the end. The end had me freaking out a bit. Thinking back on it, it does not make all that much sense---what did James have to gain by faking his death? But even if I would have prefered for the whole thing to be a conspiracy between all the other students, all manipulating Oliver to take the blame, it was certainly exciting to read. I am very curious how Oliver would plan to navigate Meredith and James.
Words:
Truncated (adj) shortened
Quotes:
A lot of Rio's writing is really pretty, but these quotes (especially in context) felt very much like thoughts that have gone through my own head.
Oliver about James leaving The Tower late at night: "I never asked where he went, worried he wouldn't ask me to follow"
Oliver after discovering James had drowned himself: "I am wretched. Destitute."
Oliver reflecting on his choice to confess to a crime that was not his: "My martyrdom is not the selfless kind."