Vicious is a sci-fi/fantasy thriller that had me on the edge of my seat from the very beginning. It is fast-paced, exciting, and easy to digest. It reminded me a lot of a comic book or action movie in that, it was fun and entertaining to read, but doesn’t have a ton of depth or complexity.

The two main protagonists are unequivocally evil in a way that felt one-note. They are both defined by the motivating force behind their evil, and while each of them has their own unique flavor, this is about as far as their character development goes. While they were fun characters to follow and initially interesting to try to understand, once I understood them, it felt like there was nothing more to dissect or think about. They didn’t feel like real people, which again, reminds me of supervillains in movies and comics.

There is also quite a lot of suspension of disbelief that a reader has to do in order to buy in, that is unrelated to the fantasy/sci-fi elements. Plot events happened in a way that felt very convenient for the story to progress. Characters showed up coincidentally in the same town, the same locations, knew the same people, etc. This aspect also reminded me of superhero movies. Everything happened to fall into place perfectly so that the story could progress in the way that Schwab needed it to.

While the characters and believability were not strengths, the plot was engaging. I enjoyed the fast pace and timeline switches that slowly reveal information from the past to catch the reader up to the present. It built up the anticipation in a satisfying way that led to a satisfying conclusion. It was pretty hard to put down at times, because I kept wanting to know what happened next.

I think this would be great for someone who is looking for a book that is easy but still engaging. It was a nice change of pace from the denser works that I typically read, but it didn’t blow me away.

Shoutout to @beezus for buddy-reading this with me!

I mean, I guess. It's so sanitized and corporate, but what more can I expect from RuPaul?

This is supposed to be a memoir, but the interiority is so shallow that there's nothing to analyze. This is RuPaul's rags-to-riches story, wrapped in a liberal American dream messaging. There's nothing really here about RuPaul's complexity, or a sense that there is any reflection upon his life.

The most interesting potential of this book lies in its exploration of early drag culture, the nitty-gritty of the scene in the heart of New York City, the trauma of the AIDS crisis, the realization of his identity. There are only small glimpses; blink-and-you-might-miss-them moments that are soon interrupted by RuPaul distancing himself and holding the reader at arms-length in favor of flowery quotes that mean nothing.

The writing is so focused on trying to sound deeper than it really is, and it ends up becoming repetitive in a way that feels sloppy rather than intentional. The titular house of hidden meanings is meant to represent the ways that healing and connection sneak up on us, the way we find ourselves reflected in the spaces and people that we least expect. Because of its shallow interiority, the hidden meaning is... nothing. The most bare-bones reflections upon life that feel like sanitized quotes for RuPaul's Instagram rather than anything substantial.

RuPaul distances himself from everything that makes his story unique. The drag scene wasn't "his tribe", and it often felt like his only identity was wanting to be famous. His supermodel persona was simply a brand created to achieve his "destiny" of being a superstar, not something that meant anything to him. Because of this, everything he says must match that persona. Clean, programmed, with struggles that wrap up easily, no loose ends left untied.

His language constantly downplays the moments of his life that should be hard-hitting. His years-long addiction to cocaine, weed, and alcohol is minimized as "partying too hard". When his father confronts him about "hanging out with gay boys", he simply puffs out his chest and tells him off. There is no feeling behind anything he does, no meaning beyond painting himself the way he wants to be seen. Even his years of experience with homelessness breeze by in a blur as opportunities and remedies seemingly fall into his lap.

His entire legacy is summed up as another cookie-cutter American dream fantasy. Work hard, and you will be rewarded. If you try hard enough, and want something bad enough, you too can make it. Of course, this is his entire brand, his entire philosophy. Forward-moving, positivity, persona-as-armor. Unfortunately the RuPaul project is not something I am interested in buying into.

Personally, I expect something meaningful to come from memoirs, some type of reflection and reckoning with one's own life in its full complexity; the good, bad, and the ugly. I certainly think RuPaul has lived a life worth retelling, but this book might as well have been a fluff article for a tabloid magazine.

The Plans I Have for You is a twisting, gut-dropping rollercoaster that takes you completely off the rails. This book is sharp and disturbing, and intentionally destabilizing in a way that leaves you reeling hours after you turn the last page.

There are so many deeply tangled threads that create such a layered experience. This book, by nature, refuses flattening. What impressed me the most was its central focus on cancel culture and internet surveillance. There's something chilling about seeing the modern experience projected in such a horrific way, placing you in the headspace of someone who had the worst day of their life filmed and posted to viral fame.

The fact that everyone everywhere has a camera in their hands at all times, and how quickly that can become a weapon. How quickly virality can strip its subjects of humanity, flattening them as the public demands clean heroes and villains, easy black-and-white moral boxes that end in dehumanization and erased interiority.

The Plans I Have for You mirrors the experience of being a spectator, a surveillant in the panopticon of modern life, in a brilliant, twisted way. Constantly playing with morality and forcing her characters into choices that get darker and darker, Sanders asks the reader to reckon with their own inner compass, to recognize in real time what it feels like to have your predetermined categories shattered, to feel the seduction and collapse of moral certainty.

The novel's horror is quiet and simmering, a spiral that spins out of control, much like a moment that goes viral overnight. Virality is contagion; characters blend into one another and identities collapse and roles reverse as victims become villains and larger-than-life aggressors become pitiful and legible. Choices and influences become so tangled that every easy answer is refused.

Behind the uncomfortable thrill of navigating a web of fucked-up choices that sometimes make too much sense, there is the recurring symbolism of inheritance. The cultural pressure of being a first-generation Asian immigrant, the familial expectation of making your ancestors' sacrifices mean something, and emotional survival patterns imprinted on us from the cycles that we were born into.

When love is a transaction, when sacrifice means debt is owed and worth is proven, when intimacy begets obligation, and when acceptance must be earned, the line between attachment and codependency wears thin. The Plans I Have for You explores the complexity of intimacy becoming the site of power, and the impossibility of tearing apart the threads of manipulation and emotional attunement.

Sanders forces the reader to face the complicated reality of vulnerability; how control and care and love and damage can create a cocktail of dependency that feels impossible to escape. Refusing, yet again, any easy answer and any easy category, to show how love can heal and harm in tandem, and how the most effective forms of control can sometimes show up wrapped in care.

The scariest part isn't that the characters are inherently evil, but that they are infinitely relatable, built upon foundations of trauma and operating by a logic that at times feels eerily coherent. We are all constrained by the systems and cycles that produced us, and yet we are still responsible for every choice we make.

This debut is ambitious as hell, and Sanders does not shy away from its difficulty. The Plans I Have For You is a deeply unsettling exploration of how surveillance culture, inherited trauma, and transactional models of care create people who both suffer under and perpetuate the same systems of violence. Even when they believe they are correcting harm, even when they believe they are severing the past, and even when they believe they are morally just.

I received an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.