Summary
Davi, prophesied savior of humans, is being tortured by the Dark Lord - again. For the 237th time, in fact. And she's tired of it. So when her life winds back to the start of the quest again, she decides to switch sides and become the Dark Lord. How hard can it be?
Review

I feel like I’m late to the Django Wexler party. He has a host of books out, but I only ran across him in the last year or two. He’s writing some of the best stories I’ve read recently, but I don’t hear his name much. I’m a little befuddled.

In any case, I was happy to pick up this book, partly because I had some confidence in Wexler’s skill, partly just for the title: How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying. That ‘and’ is perfect!

The book has a bit of a rocky start, but once it and we settle in, it’s smooth sailing and quick reading until the end. The humor is good, the character engaging. Aside from one brutal act at the start, she’s not really Dark Lord-y, but it works. All in all, a fun book.

I do mark it down for a few things (in addition to the rocky start). First, endnotes just don’t work in ebooks. Actually, they don’t work in any book – fiction or nonfiction, electronic or print. Footnotes can work, but ebooks haven’t yet figured out how to deliver those (not sure why). So, I read the endnotes, but only at the end of each chapter, which a) defeats the purpose, and b) renders most of them unfunny or incomprehensible. I bet they’d be funny as footnotes, but that’s not this case. Second, the book is very obviously a big book cut in half. That may make more money, but it makes for an unsatisfying read and a very abrupt ending. It’s still fun, but if you like resolution, wait for the second book or the inevitable omnibus (which will make much more sense to buy).

I had confidence that Wexler could pull off fantasy humor, and he does. During the first 50 pages or so, I had some doubts, but the rest of the book brought me back to the fold. I did feel there was a whole lot too much profanity. I have no problem with profanity, but it seemed like every paragraph had a ‘fucking this ‘or ‘fucking that’, and I wished Wexler would dial it back a bit just to avoid monotony. Still good despite that. Enjoy this!

I really enjoyed this book, there were parts where I genuinely laughed out loud it was so funny. The first half was especially good. The second half was a bit slower but still good. I think you’d really enjoy this if you like DnD or WoW or other games like that. It felt like one of those games come to life. Looking forward to reading about what comes next for Davi.

Big thank you NetGalley and Orbit Books for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for a fair review!

While I fully expect some people to not enjoy how this was written (i.e. all the pop culture references), that kind of stuff works for me. I giggled a little when I understand a reference, and when World of Warcraft was mentioned I squealed a little. The footnotes throughout the book were a great addition, and honestly many times while reading this I let out little chuckles. I genuinely found this book to be funny - it scratched the itch that is my sense of humor. Now, on to the actual story!

I will admit, I got a little bit lost between the 30-60% of the book. I had such a hard time slogging through, and it normally doesn't take me WEEKS to finish a book (admittedly, ebooks slow my pace down to begin with). Davi and the cast of characters that she acquires are delightful,. I love how each of the characters has their own personality and how Davi interacts with these different personalities and her thoughts on them are great. I really did enjoy this, and I will absolutely read the second book when it comes out (or when its ready on NetGalley and I hopefully get approved *crosses fingers*), but I am only going to rate it 4 stars just because of the slog that was the early middle part of the book.

Overall, still highly recommend it if you're looking for a funny fantasy, with a wise-cracking main character, a good cast of main characters. and a witty writing style.

This was absolutely hilarious! It is a fun and witty read. My face hurt at one point because I was smiling through the book. Highly recommend this book if you would just want a non-serious, good time book.


Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for a digital copy of this book for my honest review

This book won't be for everyone but it was certainly for me. I really enjoyed How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying. The story follows Davi, a woman living a groundhog's day like life in a distant foreign land for nearly a 1,000 years. She's tired of playing, and losing, for the good guys so decides to be the bad guy instead.

This book was wonderfully funny and sarcastic. It's crude in parts, there is a ton of swearing and the main character breaks the third wall often. It's written almost like the main character is narrating her life in real time as a story to a friend. It worked for me. I really enjoyed the plot and the character development. It was a great book!

Thank you to Netgalley and to Orbit Books for the advanced reader copy. The opinions are mine alone.

This book was so much fun! I’m many places Davi was giving Zac from “Saved by the Bell” vibes with the first-person fourth-wall breaking writing style. The story was adventurous, entertaining, and certainly makes one think about what would happen if you just chose the other path instead. Would certainly recommend!

I found this book hilarious and incredibly engaging. I enjoyed the humor and the characters were well written. The one thing I wish was that the footnotes were at the bottom of the pages and not at the end of the chapters. It made it hard to follow the footnotes without having to flip back and forth in the book. I can definitely see the anime influences in this and it was an overall fun read, I am excited to see what’s next in this series. 4.5/5

I'm waffling between 3 and 4 stars on this one, but I'm ultimately going with 4 because it was a fun read overall. Seeing someone who is intensely skilled in one area (granular, meticulous military fantasy) do something entirely different (lighthearted isekai comedy) is very fun. It's basically a goofy story with incongruously thorough battle sequences. I felt real tension at all the right points, and I liked the side characters very much.

The weak link is Davi. If you read the first chapter and think to yourself "Man, these constant references are kind of annoying," you might as well stop there. Davi is constantly quipping and joking and referring to things like John Woo movies and Nickelodeon, and it's funny maybe 10% of the time. But all the orcs and yetis and whoever just constantly ignoring these outbursts strains credulity fast, and it gets really, really old after a while. I didn't hate her as a character, especially when she focuses on what's going on rather than talking about Tolkien, but I wish the author had phased out just a little more of the side chatter.

Oof, heavily mixed feelings on this one.

On one hand, the concept is clever, the subversion of tropes delightful. This is not your happy romp through a fantasy world (like Brandon Sanderson's wonderful A Wizard's Handbook to Medieval England was); it's the darker version, the Villain Edition, as it were, and the dark zany humor was a lot of fun. I found lots to enjoy here.

On the other hand, the level of language and vulgarity was frankly shocking, and entirely unnecessary. Davi, rather than reading like a world-weary thousand-yr-old woman who has HAD IT with trying to be the chosen one and decides to become a villain, reads more like an immature teenage boy. It was also surprising that Davi's actual love interest was a woman.

Still, very grateful to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc--I enjoyed a lot, but dialing down the extreme language and sexual comments would've made the book so much better, and probably reach more of an audience!

This book was my first by Django Wexler and it definitely won't be my last.

Davi woke up one day naked in a pool of water with a wizard standing over her telling her she has come to their kingdom as part of a prophecy to save them from the Dark Lord... except, she has been in a time loop for thousands of years and constantly watches her newfound friends and self die horrible deaths and has decided that she's going to become the villain instead.

The story is over the top and hilarious--Davi is pretty removed from her humanity because every time she dies, the loop starts over and no one but her remembers what happens, so why not go big? There were times in which Davi did annoy me, but never enough to stop reading. There is modern slang in the book but it didn't bother me (because Davi is from present day Earth, so obviously she's going to use it) until the characters from this weird world started using it. The book does have a lot of build up to end rather abruptly, and on a tiny cliffhanger, so be warned about that. All in all, it was a strangely cozy read for something that has so much violence.

Django Wexler seems to have hit it out of the park with this book. I thought that Davi was hilarious as a main character as she just boldly goes where no human has gone in trying to become the Dark Lord. Davi reminds of main characters from popular anime such as "Re:Zero" and "Arifureta." The whole "I am going to keep dying till I get the Dark Lord bit" is...well....dark, but intentional. Now granted this book is not for everyone and I would never say that all people would enjoy this type of twisted humour. Davi becomes this beacon that with unlimited amount of lives, ("Doom" anyone??), you can keep trying to get the right combination of things to go your way.

I would suggest this adventure-in-a-book to anyone whom finds it fun being the PVP killing machine for Souls-like games or can find solace in the darkest of manga or anime out there. You will likely find this an adventure from cover to cover!

This book has such a promising premise, but I had to DNF at 30% because I just could not do another 200 pages of Davi's irritating POV.

Several issues here:

I'm not opposed to cursing and strong language, but *literally* every single page had at least one "fuck" and the random page I decided to share with my husband when I ranted about how frustrating this writing choice was had SEVEN, plus a few other curse words. It was just gratuitous and didn't enhance the story in any way.

I'm also often on board with an irreverent, snarky FMC who knows how to wield a weapon, but I just never managed to find Davi likable. I frankly couldn't bring myself to care about whether she succeeded or failed at her goal, which is probably the cardinal sin of this book for me. If you're going to have a lot of gore and trauma in your book, at least make it meaningful and make your MC someone I can connect with and care about.

The other thing that I truly could not get past was that Davi supposedly can't remember where she is from, to the point of saying that *maybe* she's American? Yet she constantly makes very specific pop-culture references and even references Reddit at one point... So what, exactly, is the issue with her memory? She can recall random details about her home world but not anything about her life? Maybe this gets resolved or answered later on, but again, I can't bring myself to care.

An interesting book! A mix of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, video games, and Groundhogs day. A bit much language for my taste, but otherwise fun!

Django Wexler's How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying is a hoot. Davi, a human from our world finds herself transported to a strange fantasy realm where she's been told that she's the chosen one, tasked with defeating the Dark Lord. The only problem is that things haven't...exactly...gone very well for Davi. She's tried to defeat the Dark Lord, really, she has. But she's failed. Those failures have ended in pretty gruesome ways for Davi. She's died some horrible, terrible, painful ways. Somehow, though, Davi keeps getting transported to where she started her quest, tasked with trying again. And each time, she fails (and dies) again. This time, though, David figures that if she can't beat the Dark Lord, she'll become the Dark Lord. She sets out on a new path, recruiting minions and forming her dark horde as the Dark Lord in Waiting, hoping that this new strategy will bear more fruit than all her previous failed attempts.

How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying is a book that doesn't take itself, or its plot, too seriously. Davi is a sarcastic smart-aleck character who spends as much time talking to the reader through her narration as she does plotting her next steps in becoming the Dark Lord. It's a plan that she hasn't necessarily thought all the way through, though, and hilarity often ensues. Along with some good humor, there's plenty of adventure and fantasy tropes told in refreshingly unique ways to keep the story moving at a quick pace. I thoroughly enjoyed Wexler's prose and look forward to book 2 in the planned duology. I've never read Wexler before and he admits that this book is a far different one from what he usually writes (looking at his back catalogue, it looks like he typically writes more traditional fantasy) but I enjoyed How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying enough that I will definitely check out some of his other titles. This was a fun read!

too many popular references annoys me so the main reason i stick to fantasy is so i don’t deal with that.. too bad that’s all this book is so far. also main character comes off as corny instead of badass. how unfortunate

This book was humorous in such a meta way. It was such a fun fast read. The violence and vulgarity did not turn me off the story at all and really added to the fun in my opinion. To me it reminded me of anime but not quite. This book was very different from my normal romantasy but overall I really enjoyed it.

I want to say thanks to NetGalley for my advanced reader's copy. And sorry that I couldn't get through it. While the concept was interesting, I could not get past the forced humor. I ended up DNFing this around chapter three.

Django Wexler’s new comic novel is the start of a series, or at least a duology. It follows the exploits of a woman from Earth forced to relive countless failed attempts to fulfill a prophecy as savior of a human fantasy kingdom. As the book starts she flips the script and decides to assume the bad guy role. The tone is very sassy and knowing and, if one enjoys snarky humor, this book will fit the bill nicely. I found the frenetic snark a bit too much. I also found the start a bit slow. Once it gets going, though, it keeps you hooked. Interestingly, I thought Wexler’s writing really was at its best as he described a pivotal battle, when his strength as a writer of military fantasy shone through. The book entertained me and I will try the sequel, though I will skim more of the humorous footnotes in the next volume.

I could not put this book down.
Not only was it hilarious, it was expertly written.
My only critique is that it ends on a cliff hanger! THE AUDACITY!
Now, not only do I have to wait for this to be published, but I have to wait even longer for the sequel.
Them's the breaks.
11/10 no notes

While this was probably really funny for some people, but this wasn't my cup of tea. It was very raunchy. Great idea, but missed the mark for me...