If We Were Villains, written by M. L. Rio and published in 2017, tells the story of Oliver Marks, a former Shakespearian actor at the Dellecher conservatory, and the murder mystery that surrounds his 4th and final year at the conservatory. 10 years after the events, Oliver is approached by the former police officer who investigated his case, asking him to tell him the truth about what really happened. Oliver agrees, on the condition that the retired police officer does not act on the revelations.
In his 4th year at the elitist conservatory, Oliver lives with his 6 classmates, the only ones remaining after the regular "purge" of the underperforming students. They all seemingly play their respective parts as the hero, the villain, the tyrant, the temptress... Everything changes when the 4th year students perform Macbeth for Halloween (as is customary every year) and the roles are redistributed.
If We Were Villains contains examples of:
- Asshole Victim: Richard becomes truly despicable and gets into conflicts with most characters before he's killed.
- Boarding School: Dellecher conservatory is a boarding school in the middle of nowhere, and the 4th year drama students live in a castle.
- Bury Your Gays: Debatable since James kills himself (rather than simply dying or getting killed), but he doesn't get a chance at happiness.
- Chekhov's Classroom: In the fourth years' class about tragedies: "What is more important - that Caesar is assassinated or that he is assassinated by his intimate friends?" Richard is cast as Caesar. Draw your own conclusions.
- Chekhov's Gag: When Richard is complaining about how much work he had to do last year while cast in two plays, Filippa tells him not to worry because he's cast as Caesar this year and he dies in Act 3, so he's not got as many lines to learn. The book is structured like a play, and split into acts. Again, draw your own conclusions.
- Cruel Twist Ending: In true Shakespearean fashion, the ending reveals that James died while Oliver was in prison.
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: ...But then, his body was never found.
- False Confession: Oliver confesses to killing Richard despite being innocent.
- Genre Throwback: To Shakespeare's tragedies, naturally.
- Jack of All Trades: Oliver and Filippa are the only ones to not have a specific role that is always attributed to them. They are able to perform most roles decently.
- A Lighter Shade of Grey: The 7 main characters are interwoven in a conflict where it seems that no one is truly wrong or right.
- Mysterious Past: Filippa's family and her backstory are a complete mystery to the other characters.
- Never Found the Body: James. The story leaves it ambiguous as to whether he's actually alive.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Oliver gets extremely creeped out at the Lear cast party when he finds James blind drunk, standing on the ledge of the library window, darkly reciting Shakespeare.
- Scholarship Student: Oliver pays his final semester tuition through loans, scholarship money, and work-study.
- Shakespearian Actors: Yes, you're all Shakespearian actors, we know, we get it.
- Sliding Scale of Free Will vs. Fate: This is the meaning of the title quote. Were the seven students destined to fall apart the way they did because society perceived them as their typecast roles and they got lost in them, or was it their own fault?
- Speaks in Shout-Outs: All the main characters frequently speak in Shakespeare quotes. In the book's acknowledgements, the author credits her university classmates for confirming that there really are people who can hold conversations in nothing but the Bard's verses.
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Spiritual Successor: There's the obvious connection to Shakespeare's tragedies, but Villains is also evocative of The Secret History, another novel about True Companions in a classical academy who fall prey to their inner demons after killing one of their group. - There Is Only One Bed: When James comes to visit Oliver in the middle of the night, they end up sharing a bed in Oliver's bedroom so they don't wake Oliver's family up.
- The Three Faces of Eve: Filippa is the Wife, Meredith is the Seductress, and Wren is the Child.
- Unreliable Narrator: We only get Oliver's version of the story, which might be twisted to "protect" some of his friends.
- Villain Has a Point: Okay, so maybe Richard is not the nicest of guys, but he is kind of right in that if James and Oliver had gotten a grip and admitted their feelings earlier, Oliver wouldn't have slept with Meredith and Richard wouldn't have been angry enough to try and shove James around at the lake, leading to his death and the rest of their problems.
- Wham Line: There's plenty.
- "James was in love with Wren, and I was blindly, savagely jealous."
- The boat hook reveal.
- "...his body was never found."
- Who Murdered the Asshole: As the investigation goes on, the main investigator is more and more suspicious that most characters resented Richard before his death and had a reason to kill him.
- Will They or Won't They?: There is tension between Oliver and several other main characters. So... did they?
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Most characters, at one point or another, telling Oliver that he isn't as bland or "just decent" as he thinks he is.
