Vicious (Vicious #1) by V.E. Schwab

Vicious
(Vicious #1)
V.E. Schwab
Science Fiction
Hardback, 364 pages
24th September 2013 by Tor

Goodreads Ratings: 4.24/5
My Rating: 4/5

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong. Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end? 

Vicious is different from anything i've read. There is no hero characters at all. Only those who are villains and less villains. There is no emotional attachment to any of the characters. Only deep thoughts, suspense (wait is suspense an emotion???) and actions. Its a different form of reading experience, this one.  So this book focuses on Eli and Victor, pre-med students who are on their way to write their thesis circulating around adrenaline and ExtraOrdinary human, and finally being EOs themselves from some insane science experiments. (You'd probably like this part if youre into extraordinary abilities, X-Men, that kinda stuffs. OH OH LIKE THE TV SHOW HEROES. goodness i miss that show.) Fall-outs happened and 10 years later, revenge takes place.  But seriously, someone needs to do a real life research, incase if there really are EOs around and its relation to NDEs. You never know.  “Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.”