Book Review: A Lesson in VENGEANCE

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee is a rollercoaster of trauma, magic, and psychopaths, and somehow it was not that interesting. The book is about a super senior named Felicity who returns to her old boarding school while processing the death of her girlfriend, Alex. Soon after moving into her dorm at the Godwin house, Felicity meets the mysterious Ellis, a famous, teenage method writer who is working on her latest book and came to Godwin because of its disturbing history of five girls being murdered. Throughout the events of the book, it is revealed that Felicity had a part to play in Alex’s death and Ellis may not be exactly what she seems.

Then again, the rules of the boarding school make no sense. The girls frequently skip school, as well as work independently on their senior thesis with virtually no actual required classes. In addition, there is a staff member living in the same house as them, meaning that, while they are drinking, sneaking out, smoking, and having mental breaks, there is an adult that could be stopping them. Toward the beginning of the book, Lee writes that “Godwin House is the smallest on campus– only large enough to fit five students in addition to Housemistress Macdonald, who sleeps on the first floor...” This was clearly a throwaway line, considering her presence in Godwin was never mentioned again. This just seems to be plain lazy writing. It gives the characters an excuse to do whatever they want to further the plot with no repercussions.

About three-fourths of the book was a drag. It was so painfully slow that, when the big twist was revealed at the end, the pacing felt like whiplash. The book would have been much more enjoyable if the drama was a little more evenly spread throughout instead of the last 50 pages trying to make up for the snail’s pace of the first 250. This is not to say that there were no interesting parts. The hunting scene and the old church scene were both extremely intriguing there just should have been more scenes like that throughout the entire novel.

Ellis is crazy and the foreshadowing was breathtaking. The strangling and hunting scenes were enough to make anyone uncomfortable and spout some conspiracy theories about her, but not quite enough for Felicity, or the reader, to see her true intent. It is planted at the beginning of the story that Ellis was just using Felicity’s trauma to get an interview with someone who had a part to play in the death of her girlfriend, but it was actually so much worse. For a YA love interest, Ellis was a really good, well-rounded character. The characters are by far the strongest part of the book, not to say they don’t have flaws, but the idea of it all was enough to make them enjoyable.

Ellis and Felicity were a whole other story. While Alex and Felicity’s relationship seemed unhealthy, theirs just seemed a little dull. This is not to say that they were not close. They have a spiritual kind of connection where they just understood how each other thought down to the bone, but it never seemed fun. Relationships should be more than just the serious side of things, and there were only a few and far between examples of Ellis and Felicity just doing normal, dorky couple things. Instead, their romance had to be filled with all of this over-dramatic, two hearts one-beat kind of passion. There is also this slightly strange power dynamic between the girls where Ellis always felt like a step above Felicity. Other people thought it, Felicity thought it, and even Ellis thought it. Of course, it is revealed that Ellis had been manipulating her the whole time and that is obviously morally wrong. However, all of the above complaints take place during the middle of the book while the reader is still meant to be rooting for the main couple. When it comes down to it, their relationship did not fail because of the lack of fun or the power dynamic. It was because Ellis is an actual murderess.

Unfortunately, the plot was hard to pick up on. Backstories and the history of the five had to be pieced together, but then there would be moments that were just Felicity having false memories or where the whole truth turned out to not be the whole truth and everyone is confused all of the time. For a good chunk of the book, we were led to believe that the girls had been submitting a snowy mountain when Alex slipped and Felicity was forced to cut the rope binding them together or they would have both fallen. It is then revealed that Felicity made it all up and that she had actually pushed Alex off of a cliff in a drunken rage. Although confusing, the false memories twist can be explained. What cannot be forgiven, however, is sacrificing continuity for the wow factor. After Felicity realized how she thought Alex died was false, she was thrown into a breakdown, reliving what had actually happened. Alex says, “I dove again and again, eyes straining against the black water, searching. I dragged my fingers through the slit at the lake bottom.” Alex’s body was never found, or so we were told. Then, randomly, in the last few chapters of the book, Felicity thinks, “... I’d buried her as Margery Lemont had been buried– In the crawl space under Godwin House…” Felicity had known that she found and buried Alex’s body since she remembered her true death. It was not a moment of realization, but a moment of acceptance. Throughout the book, Felicity had been having panic attacks over Alex’s body never being found, but she knew exactly where it was. It seemed like Lee came up with it on the fly, throwing in a last-minute plot twist she thought would be cool. It was not foreshadowed and does not make sense with Felicity’s reactions. Continuity errors can be forgiven when it comes to rom-coms or fairytales, but A Lesson in Vengeance takes on such a dark, serious tone. It seems silly for things to not make sense.