If We Were Villains: A Novel Hardcover – Deckle Edge, April 11, 2017

I do not like the star rating system. I either like something or I don't. Usually if I like it, it's a five. I respect authors and their work.This is a solid five. I enjoyed this book. The way it was written, the characters and how they come to life, caring for each other. The ending.You don't have to be a Shakespearean scholar to appreciate the book. I think that it would help understand deeper nuance of feeling, but the feeling is still strong regardless. The book certainly fostered a desire for me to become more aquainted with the Bard.My one complaint was how unattached the adults were to what was going on with the students. It was as bad as Hogwarts, the students in danger and the adults never really engaging with them. I wanted to know more about them but they remained two dimensional throughout the book.Except for the detective, Colborne. His genuine concern for Oliver and his need to know the truth connected us in a natural way to the story.There is discussion if this book should be shelved LGBTQ. I believe it could be, but I am afraid that it would discourage some non-LGBTQ who would read it and enjoy it. I think giving it an LGBTQ flag would be misleading. Yes, there are positive gay characters, but their sexuality isn't important. To me their love, concern, affection, devotion, goes beyond a mere physcial description.As I read the story I was intrigued with the idea of the group dynamics of the students. How they spent each and every moment together, working towards creating a single piece of art. They have to trust each other physically and emotionally with their most intimate moments. They have to put the interests of the group ahead of their own. They have to care for and protect each other. They have to be able to accept each other, flaws and all.This story shows what csn happen when that goes wrong.

If We Were Villains: A NovelBy: M. L. RioNarrated by: Robert PetkoffLength: 12 hrs and 50 minsRelease date: 04-11-17PERICLES: Antioch, farewell! for wisdom sees those men Blush not in actions blacker than the night Will ’schew no course to keep them from the light. One sin, I know, another doth provoke; Murder’s as near to lust as flame to smoke.(Taken from play: Pericles, Prince of Tyre)"Actors are by nature volatile—alchemic creatures composed of incendiary elements, emotion and ego and envy. Heat them up, stir them together, and sometimes you get gold. Sometimes disaster." - OliverM. L. Rio holds a master's degree in Shakespeare Studies from King's College London and Shakespeare's Globe. It's no surprise then that the reader will find her first novel one of intellectual enjoyment.The novel transitions between the day Oliver is released from jail and ten years previous, when he was a student at Dellecher Classical Conservatory. Oliver, along with six of his friends, were theater students studying Shakespeare. But the blurring of lines between actor and reality is the trigger by which their own Shakespeare-like tragedy unfolds and someone is murdered. Oliver is the main protagonist who unfolds the story to us as to what really happened on the night that one of his classmates was found dead. He was convicted but he didn't commit the crime.I wasn’t expecting to get so invested in these characters and it was engrossing to read about how actors can lose themselves while trying to get into character. Rio knew just how to expose the darkness inside each of the protagonists, using jealousy and betrayal to build tangled plot-lines that's as old as Cain and Abel. As Shakespeare's play "Pericles" so well articulates: "One sin, I know, another doth provoke; Murder’s as near to lust as flame to smoke"."If We Were Villains" has depth and intelligence, making the reader keep their eyes glued to the page to find out what happens in the final act."Ten years of trying to explain Dellecher, in all its misguided magnificence, to men in beige jumpsuits who never went to college or never even finished high school has made me realize what I as a student was willfully blind to: that Dellecher was less an academic institution than a cult. When we first walked through those doors, we did so without knowing that we were now part of some strange fanatic religion where anything could be excused so long as it was offered at the altar of the Muses. Ritual madness, ecstasy, human sacrifice. Were we bewitched? brainwashed? Perhaps." - OliverThe novel is articulately engrossing, however, I gave this book four out of five stars because it fell apart at the end for me. I wished Rio would have researched the criminal justice system. Oliver couldn't have been convicted because his Miranda rights weren't read to him. As Oliver explains:"I spent the next forty-eight hours in windowless interrogation rooms, fingering tiny cups of lukewarm water and answering questions from Colborne, Walton, and two other officers..."Then:"Following a map I had drawn on the back of Walton’s legal pad, Colborne led five cops with flashlights down into the undercroft, where they broke into my locker with a crowbar and bolt cutter. Damning evidence, covered in my fingerprints. “Now,” Colborne told me coldly, “might be the time to call your lawyer.”"No, Colborne. You messed up and your suspect should walk! Police will try this; to do an interrogation without advising you of your rights, but eventually this would get them into trouble as they would have no case. Even a state appointed attorney would ask if your Maranda rights have been read to you.Many people may not be aware of this fact, but after Miranda's case was overturned by the Supreme Court, prosecutors who won the original case decided to retry him on the rape and kidnapping without the original confession as evidence. At the new trial Miranda's common-law wife provided testimony that he confessed to her about the rape. Miranda was convicted again receiving the same sentence.It was a streak of luck that Miranda was able to be retried and sentenced. If you notice, the persecution had to do it without the original confession. This is the whole gist of why your Miranda rights need to be read to you and what will happen if they are not.Some suspects could still be convicted, but an appeal will let them off. So the way the storyline is written here isn't realistic.Overall, this doesn't take away from the story as I still consider this novel one of my all-time favorite reads.

Very good book I loved it the character building was just wonderful.