Vicious is about Victor and Eli – two friends in college who decide to build a thesis about how EO’s (Extraordinary people) get their powers. They experiment on each other but nothing goes entirely to plan. Fast forward ten years and while they are no longer friends, they each have an extraordinary power, and they each want to kill the other.

I really liked Vicious. I liked the way it was structured, there would be a chapter set in the present and then the next chapter would be set ten years earlier. So you have two stories running at the same time – the first is how Eli and Victor got their powers and the second is how they use them in their quest to confront each other. The chapters were also really quick reads and nearly every single one left me wanting to read more (even when I’d reached my stop on the bus)

I also liked how it is left up to the reader to figure out whose side you’re on because while they are both super-powered they are most definitely not superheroes. That being said, they each have clear motives for their actions so it is difficult to label one or both of them a super villain. I love some morally-ambiguous characters and there is that dilemma – is a person evil if they do a bad thing but for a good reason? That’s a question Vicious asks.

Besides from Eli and Victor (who are certainly interesting characters) you also have Serena who can be very persuasive, Sydney who is a wonderful young character – I sometimes think children in books can be annoying but she fit into the story perfectly and also acted perfectly believable when she ended up in dangerous situations – and Mitch who may be huge and scary-looking but defies all stereotypes. To be honest there wasn’t a character I didn’t like.

I love the world that is built in this novel and while Vicious is a standalone book I would definitely like to see more of the EO’s and their powers – which is something I don’t often say  as trilogys/series are a hell of a commitment. The action scenes are well written, really vivid and tense. Overall I loved pretty much everything about this book – especially the cover, just look at the awesome cover!

I give Vicious 5/5.