I was nowhere, I had no one, I felt nothing. Lost without a voice and on my own. Then a candle’s flame brought a brand new name. But now you’ve stolen everything and I’m all alone. Let’s celebrate Roman Holiday, by E. C. Myers.
Synopsis:
Just like every story, every friendship has a beginning…
Before she was a criminal wrapped up in the end of the world, Trivia Vanille was the daughter of disappointed parents who wanted nothing more than for her to be normal. Locked away and pushed into the shadows, Trivia had no one to keep her company. No one, that is, other than Neopolitan, her best and only friend.
But things change after a chance encounter with the young Roman Torchwick, a criminal on the run trying to make a name for himself before his mistakes have a chance to catch up to him. As an uncertain alliance slowly turns into a true partnership, Trivia finally begins to grasp the freedom that she had always longed for. And while her parents always insisted that Neo was nothing more than a figment of her overactive imagination, Trivia realizes that she might be a larger part of her than she ever could have guessed…
Source: Goodreads
SPOILERS BELOW
It’s time to return to the world of Remnant to look at the latest RWBY novel. This one is a prequel, telling the backstory of a pair of popular characters. Roman Torchwick was made to be a minor villain, a one-off baddie for the first episode; when his role was expanded due to his unexpected popularity with fans, Neopolitan was created as his sidekick with a design based on cosplay. Now, in this book, we finally learn how the dynamic duo first became partners in crime.
When we first meet them, Roman is already the asshole we all know and love to hate. Neo, by contrast, has not yet begun her descent into criminality: she is a troubled girl by the name of Trivia Vanille, with “Neo” being the name of an imaginary friend she manifests using her Semblance. When they meet, they become partners in crime, and Trivia begins the transformation that will see her become her darker self.
As a book where the main viewpoint characters are villain protagonists, Roman Holiday has to walk a careful line between showing off their wicked ways and keeping them sympathetic. The book does a fairly good job of this, leaning towards the sympathetic side by painting them in a somewhat lighter tone than the show: Roman’s anti-Faunus racism isn’t touched on, for instance, and his criminal plans lean more towards the over-the-top wacky schemes of RWBY Chibi than the apocalyptic violence that accompanied the Fall of Beacon. This can be easily justified in-universe by the fact that Roman and Neo have not yet met Cinder or Salem, and so have not yet fallen as far as they eventually will on the path to evil.
Roman Holiday is an excellent RWBY story providing a delightful look at the dynamic duo of Roman and Neo in their glory days, and I highly recommend it to fans of the series.
Final Rating: 5/5
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