Because You Love to Hate Me: 13 Tales of Villainy

“Leave it to the heroes to save the world--villains just want to rule the world.

In this unique YA anthology, thirteen acclaimed, bestselling authors team up with thirteen influential BookTubers to reimagine fairy tales from the oft-misunderstood villains' points of view.”

Anthologies are a great way to become familiar with new authors and see authors you know and love try their hand at something entirely new; Because You Love to Hate Me was no exception. I think “villain origin stories” is such an interesting concept for a short story collection because we get to see all the different ways villains come about. Some are born evil, some are created through no fault of their own, and many others fall somewhere in between. Each author plays on the readers’ attraction to villains as characters, as Ameriie says in the introduction, “It’s why we secretly root for them, why we find ourselves hoping they make their grand escape, and it’s why our shoulders sag with equal parts relief and disappointment when they are caught. After all, how can you not give it up to someone who works that damned hard for what they want?”  In this villainous anthology, 13 prominent YA authors team up with booktubers to explore villains both original and familiar in a fascinating new light that forces us as readers to look at ourselves and how we read stories. Each story by an author is accompanied by a piece from the booktuber who challenged the author, which range from analytical essays regarding the story to humorous advice for future villains. I’m going to go through each story/piece and share my thoughts. There will be spoilers. You’ve been warned.

The Blood of Imuriv/The Evil Vaccine: Keep the Darkness at Bay by Renee Ahdieh and Christine Riccio

This particular match up was interesting to me because it was the only one where I was familiar with both the author and the booktuber. I’ve read all of Renee Ahdieh’s books (and loved them) and I’ve religiously watch Christine since 2014. They did not disappoint me. Renee’s crazy sci-fi thriller paired with Christine’s hilarious life coaching was an excellent opening for the book. This was one of my favorites of the short stories, but I need more! I wish Renee would turn this into a real book. She may be a fantasy writer but she nailed sci-fi dystopia with this one. I am so here for this matriarchal inter-planetary society. Rhone was such an interesting character, because he obviously has some internal anger problems of his own, but you can see in only 14 pages how his patronizing family (and society as a whole) has unintentionally bred him to be this way by talking down to him, oppressing him, and choosing his life for him. Despite the very dark and sudden end to the story, Christine’s “telltale signs of darkness” had me laughing almost immediately. My personal favorite was “You use pennies to pay for things. Pennies are irrelevant and they should die. Smother this habit now before you become a threat to humanity.” I can’t call myself a nerdfighter if I don’t fervently support anyone’s campaign against the atrocity to our currency that is the penny.

Jack/Giants and Tyrants by Ameriie and Tina Burke

This story and piece may actually be my least favorite pair out of the book. My biggest beef (pun intended) with this story was that it felt incredibly juvenile. This may be due to it being a retelling of a traditional fairy tale, but honestly the writing wasn’t particularly sophisticated and the main character felt like a whiney kid. I must admit though, the ending really brought it back for me. I loved the callback to the beginning of the story with “The thing is getting them to trust you,” and the fact that Jack gave the giant princess the key to his downfall, even if it was incredibly misguided. Because I thought the story was a little childish, it was hard for me to take the analytical essay about “subverting tropes” and “offering new perspectives” seriously. While those things may be true, the whole piece just felt forced and pretentious.

Gwen and Art and Lance/The Bad Girl Hall of Fame by Soman Chainani and Samantha Lane

I felt very conflicted about this one. I love Arthurian legend (so many Merlin feels!) and I think the texting format was a very creative way to tell the story, but I honestly don’t think Gwen was truly a villain here. I think combining two “sympathetic villain” tactics in having a hero become a villain but also showing the villain in a better light made Gwen not villainous enough. She was just a flawed person who made some mistakes. I appreciated that Samantha Lane’s commentary addressed this as well as how society villainizes characters, “Our obsession with antiheroes and antivillains is a result of social ideals being rewritten.” Her piece was a much more interesting and natural look at the story and what it means for societal expectations of villains than the previous piece.

Shirley & Jim/Dear Sasha, the 411 for Villains by Susan Dennard and Sasha Alsberg

This was my absolute favorite short story in the book, and not just because it’s Sherlock. I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel reading about villains I’m already familiar with, but this story erased any doubts I had. Interestingly, Susan Dennard made a unique choice to narrate her villain origin story by the hero which highlighted the complicated relationship between the two characters, and made the hero/villain dynamic much more interesting. As with many psychopaths, James was incredibly charming; I fell for him almost as quickly as Shirley did, and I even knew what would become of him. His search for something “real” amidst all the rules and structure of society was so enticing that I found myself agreeing with him. I loved when he talked about rules only having power if we believe in them because it has always stressed me out that worth is based on we, as a society, deciding it. I loved that the story was Sherlock and Moriarty’s but it was written to Watson as a confession but also a promise. “I’m coming for you, Jim Moriarty. Checkmate.” The story was fantastic, and it was made all the better by Sasha’s advice column for failing crime lords. Sasha is completely right when she asserts that the scariest thing about Moriarty is that he could be anyone, which makes it all the more creepy when you imagine him advising (read: threatening) you on the internet. Both of these pieces have got me so excited to read Truthwitch and Zenith!

The Blessing of Little Wants/Will the Real Villain Please Stand Up? By Sarah Enni and Sophia Lee

I was mostly just confused by this story. The setting and the magic society very much reminded me of Harry Potter and Carry On, but the magic itself was much more Merlin. The concept was incredibly interesting what with a corrupted government forcing powerful magic users to hide the extents of their talents, but the story started to lose me with the quest to a dark sorcerer who may or may not be able to save magic???  I think it was very cool how Sarah Enni kept the reader in the dark about who would be the villain in the end, because Thomas’s righteousness could very easily be flipped on its head but Sigrid’s self-preservation could as well. The quest starts out all heroic “People die either way. If you act, at least their blood won’t be on your hands,” but it quickly spirals. I was with it until the very end, I even understood that Sigrid had gone all A Beautiful Mind and Thomas wasn’t realm but what even happened in the last few paragraphs? Did Sigrid understand he wasn’t real or did she think she murdered her best friend, because that adds a whole other layer to her villainy? I liked that Sophia Lee utilized this ambiguity in her commentary and posed some interesting questions about the story, the most compelling to me being “What did Thomas represent?”

The Sea Witch/Villain or Hero? You Decide! By Marissa Meyer and Zoe Herdt

I liked that Zoe Herdt took advantage of Marissa Meyer’s magic with fairy tale retellings in order to give Ursula a dark and twisted backstory. This short story accomplished what Fairest never did for me: allowed for me to sympathize with the villain. Both Nerit and Levana had very misguided views of love and how it works, which motivated most of their respective stories. While Fairest had me hating Levana even more because of how she manipulated her loved ones, “The Sea Witch” made me respect Nerit for how she managed to make a name for herself after all that had been done to her (though some of it was her fault). My favorite thing about Nerit was that she was never ashamed of herself. “Would he [Samuel], too, begin to see whatever horrible traits the others saw in me?” She worried Samuel would see the wickedness her people saw, but she never thought for a second that they were right and her talent for dark magic was something to be ashamed of. In another situation, would Nerit have been praised for her skill instead of shunned? Had she met a human of decency, would she have learned to love and lived happily like the little mermaid? Zoe Herdt asks you to take Nerit’s bravery and passion into account when deciding if she is a villain or a hero.

Beautiful Venom/Without the Evil in the World, How Do We See the Good? By Cindy Pon and Benjamin Alderson

This story was a lot darker and sadder than the others and I loved it. I expected to enjoy juxtaposing what I know of the Greek myth of Medusa with Cindy Pon’s Chinese interpretation, but I did not expect a dark commentary on rape and victim-blaming. It hid me hard when I realized what this story was about, and I realized what I’d always found disconcerting about mythology. Gods, while being incredibly flawed, still have extreme power and suffer no consequences. Mei Du’s story is saddening as opposed to scary, and you can’t help but feel her eventual satisfaction in her monstrosity is justified. I am glad she was able to strike fear in the hearts of men and make something out of her horrible curse though she was slain in the end. “Even when I was young, Medusa interested me. Her story was different from the others. I never could understand why Medusa was the villain.” I think it was very interesting and almost brave of Benjamin Alderson to take this story of his heritage and culture and have Cindy Pon dissect it and showcase its flaws.

Death Knell/Dear Death by Victoria Schwab and Jesse George

This story was one of the most unique in the book. The unconventional villain combined with the haunting writing made this story beautifully creepy, which is perfect for a story about death. I never thought of Death as a villain before, not really. He’s just doing his job right? I admired Grace’s bravery in facing her demise and was warmed by Death granting her a few last wishes. I don’t blame Death at all for taking lives, it’s the way of the universe, but when Grace shoves Death into the well and becomes him, suddenly Death is more malicious. She did something to get that job, she wasn’t a victim of circumstances or appointed by some cosmic power. She did the most human thing I can think of: tried to preserve life, and in doing so became Death, an irony that speaks to the inevitability of this particular antivillain. Victoria Schwab’s chilling characterization of Death is balanced by Jesse’s extremely personal letter to the force of Death. His writing is so beautiful, that if he isn’t writing a book, he should be because I am desperate to read it. He asks questions of Death “Do you ever regret it?”, tries to humanize it, and eventually concludes that Death can never be hero or villain. Death simply is.

Marigold/Evil Revealed by Samantha Shannon and Regan Perusse

I wasn’t super into this story but I did enjoy the ending, as was the case with a few of these stories. I knew our two young male heroes would end as our villains as opposed to the mythical Erl-queen because while George was untrustworthy, reckless, and manipulating, Isaac was a coward. He loved Marigold, but obviously not enough to want what was best for her, or at least to recognize that he doesn’t know what is best for her and it is not his place to decide. I liked that the story was set in Victorian England, a historically restrictive time for women, because it showed exactly what Samantha Shannon and Regan wanted us to see about folklore: that they are tales of caution that reflect more on the society that created them than the characters contained within. Regan’s discussion following the story highlights everything I liked about it and this book as a whole: “Evil in many cases is a matter of perspective, and society tends to villainize things it doesn’t understand.”

You, You, It’s All About You/Behind the Villain’s Mask by Adam Silvera and Catriona Feeney

I liked this story because it was clever and really for reason only: Adam chose to portray this tale of an egomaniacal narcissist in the second person, because of course it should be all about you! Adam manages to build a near-future world full of strange drugs and teenage crime lords AND include a crazy twist in only 15 pages. That’s talent, man. Like Nerit, the crime-lord-formerly-known-as-Amanda never feels remorse for what she’s had to do to get where she is. Slate escaped a horrible situation, and never looked back. What makes her character so interesting is that her pride turns into her taking a turn at playing God. With her supplies of mind altering drugs that make people her slaves and turn them into someone entirely new, she is unstoppable and she knows it. In her accompanying piece, Catriona expertly explores the metaphorical implications of all types of mask. “When you actively choose to put on a mask that has certain meanings, you can subvert or control how other people see you.” Here, she shows that there is a certain amount of freedom and autonomy when it comes to wearing a mask. Like Samantha Lane said, “Villainy is liberating.”

Julian Breaks Every Rule/Julian Powell: Teen Psycho Extraordinaire by Andrew Smith and Raeleen Lemay

This story was the funniest out of the book, and for that reason among others, it was one of my favorites. Maybe it’s a weakness for the name “Julian”, but I was immediately drawn into Julian’s narrative. Like Raeleen, I am fascinated by psychopaths so it didn’t take much for me to be enraptured. Julian’s inner monologue was the exact definition of the dark humor I’d been looking for this whole book. Within a few paragraphs of the opening of the story, the reader is hit with the extreme irony of psychopaths: they can get away with anything. I may not be a psychopath, but it is not difficult to relate to Julian as he undergoes the pressures everyone feels in high school. Sure, most everyone doesn’t have some cosmic force that kills the people they hate, but everyone deals with a little hormone-induced anger. My favorite part was when Julian’s great irony works against him, instead of getting him out of being charged with murder, it makes him unable to turn himself into the cops when a party gets out of hand. “Then Trooper Axelrod spun around and walked back to his patrol vehicle. He called out over his shoulder as he got inside, ‘Just let me know if you want me to phone in an order to Stan’s for you boys, Julian!’ Then he drove away. ‘How do you do that?’ Denic asked. ‘I fucking hate myself.’” I was so into Julian and his narrative that I was practically (I say practically, but I was) rooting for him when he decided to take matters into his own hands because his cosmic killing force failed him.

Indigo and Shade/Glamorized Recovery: Expectations vs. Reality by April Genevieve Tucholke and Whitney Atkinson

I didn’t have any particularly strong feelings about this story, but I did think the choice of villain was an interesting one. Typically, Gaston is the Disney villain cited when talking about villains whose actions you can’t justify, but April Genevieve Tucholke took that as a challenge. I think the concept was interesting as it was fairly unique compared to other YA Beauty and the Beast retellings, but I thought the story was predictable. I was much more interested in Whitney Atkinson’s exploration of the psyche of Gaston and villains like him considering the author managed to make him into both a hero and a villain. “There is something painfully relatable in the failure to overcome hardship, and to have that disappointment fester in you.” It’s an uncomfortable moment to find yourself in the shoes of one of Dinsey’s most hated villains, but after seeing him show mercy and compassion to the one he loves, it’s harder to dismiss him.

Sera/The Bad Girls’ Guide to Villainy by Nicola Yoon, Steph Sinclair and Kat Kennedy

If possible, this story was creepier than the one about death. I was absolutely terrified of this child who could break apart marriages and make men kill themselves. I was terrified, but I found myself oddly anticipating what she would become. Once again, the ending really brought it for me. Once we flipped to Sera’s point of view and started to understand that her power was sort of a curse, I was more sad than terrified. I guess what separates her from a hero is that a hero would have let the sickness consume her as opposed to taking lives to stay healthy. Instead, Sera becomes “the curse of men”…and I can’t really blame her. Steph Sinclair and Kat Kennedy choose to take on this part of the story in their piece, providing a guide for all the bad bitches of the world whose destruction will not stop with the patriarchy. While darkly humorous and witty, the piece showcases how society has villainized feminism. Some of the items on this list of “villainous qualities” are simply qualities of women taking back autonomy and living for themselves and not others.

I loved this book because not only does it showcase some extremely entertaining short stories among other things, it provides interesting and diverse commentary on how we view villains. From what we villainize to what makes a villain a villain, all is addressed in some fashion through the collaboration of this epic pantheon of YA authors and booktubers. The book is short and sweet but so much is packed in there that you won’t be wanting for much except more, more, more! I just think it’s so cool how the world of YA books and publishing has completely accepted booktubers and utilized them to their full extent, because who better to explore how we read and what it means for society than someone who represents the interests of  both readers and creators? I’m so excited for the many conversations that can be spawned from the content of this book and to read more from the authors I really liked. Until next time, happy reading!