The final reveal is satisfying but bittersweet. Some readers may want a clearer moral or a more shocking twist. Instead, Rio offers ambiguity and a quiet, aching closure that feels true to the playbooks she’s borrowed from.
Unlike novels that merely quote the Bard for flair, Rio weaves the plays into the characters’ very language and psychology. When the characters speak in Macbeth , Julius Caesar , or King Lear during rehearsals or arguments, their lines foreshadow real betrayals, murders, and breakdowns. It’s a masterclass in dramatic irony—you know the source material, so you see the disaster coming long before the characters do. If We Were Villains
It’s unavoidable. Both books feature an elite, isolated group, a murder, and a narrator looking back in guilt. Rio’s novel is more theatrical and less psychological than Tartt’s. If you demand the sprawling, glacial, intellectual density of Tartt, you might find Villains a little too neat. If you want something more propulsive and emotionally raw, you’ll prefer Rio. The final reveal is satisfying but bittersweet
