The characters seem to be the highlight of the novel, which I found very compelling. 4 POVs, at first seemed really overwhelming, however, they made it work. I think there was excellent development of each character, but I just wanted more villainy from each of them. For me, the book's premise of a magical, more murder-oriented Hunger Games made the instances of reluctant murder is not as or fitting. I was really hoping for a more gruesome plot, however, I did have to remind myself that this is a Young Adult novel about villains. For a YA audience, I think it is perfect. The world-building at first was a bit hard for me to understand, however, the aesthetic of this book was so interesting and the world made more sense as I continued reading. With that, the writing of this book was beautiful and dark – both Foody and Herman write seamlessly, and I found myself consistently surprised that two authors worked on this novel.
Trigger warnings: murder, violence, and mentions of suicide

Overall rating: 3.5

This was all atmosphere, and very little substance until about the last 20% of the book. All of the characters' motivations, with the exception of Alistair, really aren't explained in depth or at all other than "my family said so." The pacing is a bit strange and all over the place; sometimes it dragged and nothing seemed to be happening, whereas other times it flew by so quickly it took me a minute to figure out what exactly was happening. The most compelling part of this book, as I mentioned before, was the atmosphere and world that Foody and Herman created. The overarching doom and gloom feeling permeated every page of the book, and is the main reason why I kept reading. Seeing as it's a duology, I will most likely continue just to see how the story wraps up, and hopefully I like it a bit more than this one.

This was gruesome and gory, and it was just deliciously dark… I think most of my notes are just different variations of one word and one word only: damn. All of Us Villains was absolutely gripping from the first page, and I don’t know why I put it off for so long, but I’m glad I finally read this because it was truly amazing.

If you took The Hunger Games but involved magic and a curse that lasted for centuries within seven families in the remote city of Ilvernath, that would be All of Us Villains. The first in a duology, this book is told from four different perspectives, each of them from one of the seven families:

- Alistair Lowe, the one everyone expects to be the most villainous and monstrous of them all simply because of the family he was born in
- Isobel Macaslan, the one who got shoved into the spotlight and didn’t even want any of this in the first place… or so she says; it just so happens she drew a terrible card from the universe
- Briony Thorburn, the one who really wanted to be champion… and pretty much wants to be the hero of her own story
- Gavin Grieve, the one who also drew a terrible card from the universe and is taken as the butt of all jokes

Let me just say they’re all terrible in their own way. I mean, how could you not when you grow up knowing you’re likely going to die, but you’re going to train for when the Blood Veil falls like all the ones before you because you’re still going to try and be the one who brings glory to your family, aka exclusive control for high magick. But as villainous as they want to be, there’s so much more to them, and I absolutely love the character development as the novel progressed. I kind of hate them, but at the same time, I love them and just want to protect them all?

I will admit All of Us Villains did start out slow. This doesn’t truly pick up until the Blood Veil falls, the champions are announced and the tournament has begun. But Foody and Herman make up for the slow pace by developing the backstories for each of the characters and the world-building – each chapter starts with a quote from A Tradition of Tragedy, the tell-all book that has put the once remote city in the spotlight. The quotes not only give us snippets of the tournament over the years and some background for each of the seven families, but it’s also a huge part of the plot – it’s multiple birds being killed with one stone, and I love to see it.

All of Us Villains was absolutely amazing, and I can’t wait for the sequel to find out what happens to the characters. I didn’t think I would need this in my life truly until I actually read this. If you’re interested in reading something dark, this may just be your cup of tea.

The magic system in this book is really amazing and I was really sold on it when it was said to be like a Hunger Games type book but with villianous families. I'm super excited for the next book to come out already

This sounded promising from the blurb, but I found that I just couldn't get into it, unfortunately. I may try again in the future and find I'm more in the mood for it then, I hope so.

I started reading this book and it was really good I absolutely adored the concept and it gave very much hunger games vibes and also the 39 clues which I literally loved as a kid. I also loved the history and effort that was put into the backstory. Sometimes it was a bit hard to follow with all the different characters but overall it was still a really good read and I would recommend it to others people that I was talking to.

Deliciously twisty and turny dark fantasy. I was instantly pulled into this world and these characters. Everyone exists in shades of gray. They're all villains, yes, but even villains do good things . . . sometimes. And sometimes villains are simply playing the roles they've been cast in. There were so many amazing plot turns that absolutely caught me off-guard. I can't wait for the second book!

all of us villains was an quick and thrilling read with its intriguing of atmosphere of hunger games with magic along with aspects of generational familial pressure. The backstory and system of magic and curses were relatively easy to follow along with each of the seven families' histories of champions and losses on how that affects the present day teen champions. Being multi-perspective made this story fly by much faster in my personal reading experience, but honestly two out of the four point of views carried. It was a bit slow paced towards the beginning but expected with a fantasy series first novel, but it definitely picked up once the tournament started. Alistair Lowe, son of the infamous deadly Lowe family who have had the most winners of the tournament, is of course the most multi-layered character we get to see ranging from his boundless power to the spin of his mind to the grief he is put through. Isobel Macaslan, is one quite interesting as she was thrust into the spotlight as her name was thrust into the media as champion though she had never wanted. She deals with the most fighting much internal battles but also external with her split parents, her father expecting perfection as their family champion meanwhile her mom wants the exact keeping her safe from all harm along with complicated past friendships and new ones. The development of the dynamic between Alistair and Isobel was one well done with its slow burn and one could see it coming with how they met and how their story would could with all the foreshadowing. After the chaos and plot twists of the last ten percent, I'd be fascinated to pick up the sequel and see where Foody and Herman take this story!

I really enjoyed the concept of this book! The magic system was complex and captivating, I hope to see more books set in this world.

Unfortunately, this book hit all the wrong tropes for me. Only characters that I liked were Brionny, who was complicated and actually changed as the story progressed, and Gavin, who was also written quite well. Everyone else were carton copies of popular cliche characters - Brooding Bad (but Misunderstood) Boy, Arthurian Hero Boy, Evil but Princess, The Nancy from "Craft" character... I needn't go on. Then there was action which was quite captivating but took SO LONG to start. All in all it was an entertaining but, unfortunately, not an especially well written story.

I listened to this book on audio and I actually really enjoyed listening to it. The only reason I rated it as low as I did is due to the fact that nothing really happened in the book until the halfway mark and by then lots of people could lose interest. Alistair Lowe was my absolute favorite character in the book and even though I rated it as a 3.5 star I found myself wanting a sequel. This book is a cross between Caraval and Hunger Games and I am going to continue the series.

I like this author & loved the cover/title. I will not be reviewing it since it is a 2021 book and I did not read it in time for our award program cut off, but I wish it all the best!

I am really glad I gave this book a second chance. While the audiobook did not work for me, I had a much better experience just reading the ebook and it felt like I was reading a totally different book! I thought that the concept of this book with the Blood Veil and Tournament of villains was super intriguing, and the setting of Invernath just cast an atmospheric, villainous pall over the entire story that was truly perfect. I was really interested in all of the POV champions--Alistair, Isobel, Gavin and Briony and how they navigated their notorioty and the family dynamics within all of the magical families. I loved the slow burn with Alistair and Isobel in particular, and they really grew on me both individually and together in a way I wasn't feeling in the first book. The plot itself was relatively well-paced and engaging, and I really enjoyed seeing so many wonderfully developed morally grey characters. The rules of magick and the tournament were interesting and it was really cool to see how it all worked. The competition had the same bloodthirstyness and brutality that packed a punch in The Hunger Games, but with the unique cast of characters and world-building, ALL OF US VILLAINS stands out on its own. I'm now super excited for the next book to see what happens next.

I felt like I had been dropped into a story that was already going. With no explanation I felt like I was reading something and missing something about the story. The characters failed to grab me and I just didn't really care about their situation. I think others might enjoy this one but it just wasn't for me.

The premise is that there's 7 families who have a tournament every 20ish years to determine who gets access to the good magic juice while everyone else has to deal with being normal. The competitors have to take part in a fight to the death until there is a final victor. 3 months of no holds barred magical mutilation (with the average stuff because The Veil basically sucks up all the good stuff as far as I can tell) to determine who is the greatest. Over the years, the Lowes have usually come out on top but there has been the occasional upset where they relinquished control for a generation. Usually, this tournament is a closely guarded secret of the town of Ilvernath but in the year of leadup, someone released the details to the public and now there's an unwanted audience.

I really want to start out discussing the magic system within the novel because it felt like a really good departure from the stereotypical magic tournament. In order for the competitors to cast magic, they have to take everything they need in with them. Spells are contained within objects and you can't just swish and flick a competitor away Death Eater style. If you can manage to find raw magic and more ingredients within the veil, great, you can make enchantments but each spell has an infinite number of uses. If you run out of containers in which to store your magic and want a different spell, you have to empty out the old spell to add a new one. As a fan of novels about magical mayhem, I found this to be a genius way to try to level the playing field.

The novel takes place from the POV of 4 of the 7 champions – Isobel Macaslan, Briony Thorburn, Gavin Grieve and Alistair Lowe. Each is determined to put their past relationships behind them and violently murder the others, be it via magic or violence. I thought I may begin to lose track of who was narrating at what point but thankfully

1. I read on the kindle so could easily see chapter names;
2. Each character has a very individual voice (except for the 2 girls) and didn’t really overlap all that much; and
3. The characters were together in varying capacity throughout so it was easy to determine the narrator based on who they were speaking about.

I will say here that I picked a certain twist relating to the publication of the novel very early on but it didn’t detract from the appeal of the story because everyone acts in ways that are very much unexpected. There's also varying ways that all 7 enter the tournament so it began in unexpected ways – it kept me engaged during a time of many anticipated releases so bonus points for that.

There aren't many downsides to this one, except maybe I expected it to be paced differently. There is a lot of stuff that happens before they actually enter The Veil so expect to be waiting for the whole thing to really get going until around the half way point.

I will also point out that everyone acts in ways that are outside the norms of a battle to the death so there's no real big bad except for maybe the person who wrote the book or the tournament itself. If you are the type to want someone to hate, its actually really difficult with All of Us Villains because everyone has redeeming qualities.

I really enjoyed this. Similar to The Hunger Games, get more brutal like GOT. I loved the world building and the characters were richly developed.

Thank You to Tor Teen, the authors and Netgalley for an E-ARC of "All of Us Villians" in exchange for an honest review*

Wickedly good read. I enjoyed the perspective from "villains" and the fresh take on the whole young people battle royale. So much tragedy and yet I couldn't stop reading. Definitely not the kinda book you wanna read without the next book on immediate standby.

Dark, dangerous, delicious.

I really enjoy the writing of these authors individually. Together = chef’s kiss

It’s basically The Hunger Games + magic. It felt fast-paced and held twists. Extremely well-plotted too.

I cannot wait to see what’s next!!!

So far, with its diverse POV cast and the promise of a battle to the death between the scions of the various families, this is very much reminding me of an aged down version of House of Dragons.

But holy crap, how did this book be so good, basically from beginning to end. I was highkey ready to go into this and hate every single characters. First on my shit list was Alasdair, and I'll be damned if he didn't become my actual fav by the end.

Similarly, with Gavin Grieve, he seemed like a big old underdog at the start. So I felt sorry for him. And then he made enough dumb choices that ended up changing his personality that I found myself watching him like he was a rabid dog before the end.

These are just two of the ways that these authors wrote amazing characters and four different PoVs. There are actually 7 main characters in this battle to the death, but only four of them end up having chapters in their viewpoint. The reason for this becomes pretty clear early on.

And the depth of family relationships and history that we get from these four people is just... wow. There are not many books that pull on hundreds of years of history where you actually feel as though you came out of it feeling as though you are on the inner circle of having seen that history unfold.

The magic and the world building of this novel are just phenomenal. And honestly I shouldn't be surprised given Amanda Foody is also the author of Ace of Shades, a similarly gut wrenching beginning to a series.

I absolutely can't wait to see what the rest of this series does.

Did I enjoy it? Yes. Do I think teens would like it? Yes. Do I think any teen under 16-17 should read it? Meh. This book was so bloody and violent that I don’t know that It should be marketed to YA (ages 14-18).