Review: The Vindico

Author: Wesley King
Date of Publication: June 14, 2014
Pages: 272
Source: Library

The Vindico are a group of supervillains who have been fighting the League of Heroes for as long as anyone can remember. Realizing they’re not as young as they used to be, they devise a plan to kidnap a group of teenagers to take over for them when they retire—after all, how hard can it be to teach a bunch of angsty teens to be evil?

Held captive in a remote mansion, five teens train with their mentors and receive superpowers beyond their wildest dreams. Struggling to uncover the motives of the Vindico, the teens have to trust each other to plot their escape. But they quickly learn that the differences between good and evil are not as black and white as they seem, and they are left wondering whose side they should be fighting on after all . . .

With fast-paced action, punchy dialogue, and sarcastic humor, this high-stakes adventure from a talented new YA voice pulls you in from the first page.

AMAZON / GOODREADS

Review:

Some books grow on you. I was almost positive The Vindico would either be a DNF or one star read for most of the book. So I was extremely pleased that, after I finally finished it, I realized it was entertaining and not that bad.

The premise is awesome although light-hearted. I was extremely disappointed with that. I wanted a serious story about the transformation into becoming a villain and The Vindico was not that.

Emily, Hayden, Sam, James and Lana were all kidnapped from their homes by a Villain so that they can gain superpowers and help the villains overthrow the League of Heroes. The Villains have their own reasons for hating the League and the kids don't have much of a choice.

There isn't much depth to the story which is disappointing. The characters are very shallow and defined by very few characteristics. The motive for the Villains however was suspect, as was how easily the kids succumbed. The worst main characters were annoying (James), robotic (Emily), and forgettable (Sam). Lana is a bit harder to describe, but I feel the term wimpy does it best. While Emily had almost no emotion, Lana was constantly crying or feeling angry or guilty about something.

Hayden might be extremely frustrating in real life, but he brought this book to life. He's flamboyant and too loud. He makes stupid decisions and he's a disgusting slob. He was also the only character I truly liked when reading The Vindico and part of me finishing the book can be attributed to wondering what would happen to Hayden. That being said, even Hayden wasn't too deep.

The action was cheesy and skipped over the serious bits. Imagine one of those bad horror movies. The Vindico wasn't quite as bad (or good if you're like me and love horror) but there honestly wasn't much intellectual stimulation. It's a book to read to enjoy as entertainment.

It's fun to see the superpowers of each of the kids and how they develop. The development was rushed and not very believable, but all the different methods for obtaining superpowers were interesting. For most of the book, the plot wasn't particularly impressive except for the ending.

What can I say? I enjoyed it. There was fighting and betrayals. I was also very happy with the characters' decisions. Everything wrapped up well enough and was cute.

There's not much else to comment on because there wasn't very much layering or depth to the story. Frankly, the story is too simple for me, but that's because I look for deeper reads. If you do want a purely entertaining story, The Vindico is a good bet. It's extremely readable and although it's flawed and unrealistic, I wouldn't say it's boring. 1.5.

-P.E.