I loved that, the quick retorts the built up their life’s centrality on Shakespeare and their familiarity with the material. It’s not a retelling, but a homage, with lines from a wide variety of plays peppered among the friends’ speech as they talk to one another. It was as if this book was written with me in mind, contracting all my Shakespeare nerdery into one. It is a stunning book that is going to stay with me for a long time, demanding to be re-read. I’ve never read Dark Academia before, and I’m therefore not sure if I would love the rest of the sub-genre (trying to find the main genre it fits under was a nightmare!) or if I loved this books so much because of the literature it sat on, devoured, and reshaped. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless… When tragedy strikes, one of the seven friends is found dead. But when the teachers change the casting, a good-natured rivalry turns ugly, and the plays spill dangerously over into real life. Detective Colborne is retiring, and he wants to know what really happened a decade before.Īs a young actor at an elite conservatory, Oliver noticed that his talented classmates seem to play the same characters onstage and off – villain, hero, temptress – though he was always a supporting role. On the day of his release, he is greeted by the detective who put him in prison.

Oliver Marks has just served ten years for a murder he may or may not have committed.

If we were villains book review