I am really sad to DNF this at 30%. This sounded perfect for my tastes and I liked the humor at first, but Davi just sounds like a 14 year old boy, and it is kind of gross.

4.5/5 Stars

First I'd like to thank Orbit Books for approving my request to read this eARC via NetGalley of How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler.

To be completely honest, I don’t think any review could do this book justice unless it was read slightly unhinged – perhaps by Jim Carrey? - with musical accompaniment by Jack Black, but in the style of Bowser. And that basically set's our stage...You will like this book if you grew up with, and loved, Redwall, Ready Player One, World of Warcraft, Groundhog Day, Deadpool, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Lord of the Rings. Basically, you will love this books if you like witty banter, found family, epic journeys, pop culture references, non-animal characters, and a tale that plays out as a MMO...on repeat?

To begin, if you started this book and stopped at the 15-20% mark, I encourage you to persist. Because I did the same. It was so very chaotic (my first note is "jumps right int with torture; tone is set"), without a clear plot established by that point that I could only read a bit at a time and moved on to other books that captured me earlier in their tale. But once you cross over (haha as if, right Davi?) I didn't want to put it down. Now, for those determining if you are going to pick this book up – don't let this scare you. It is not slow. It's strange. And up through the 20% mark you're getting a little backstory and world history, while watching Davi on repeat (think Groundhog Day trope). Davi has an objective, you just don't know when you'll be on the, uh, stable, storyline.

Not going to lie, I loved the journey but was a bit exasperated to see that this wasn't a stand-alone. I really, really want more fantasy stand-alone novels in my life. I know MANY of my fellow readers love a series, but if you are also like me, you need fewer series on your TBR. And no one likes to jump into an unfinished series, am I right?!

Now, for the meat of the tale. Davi, our resurrected, prophesized heroine is done with her fate. Our 20 year old presenting 1000 year old main character is done trying to save the world from the Dark Lord takeover and has decided, on her 278th life (the count it a general guestimate...) that she's switching sides. She's going to become the Dark Lord. The only problem, just a minor thing, is she's a resurrected nobody to the Wilder's (non-humans) and thus has to establish her legitimacy and gain a horde.

The tale takes place over a two month span, on the way to the Convocation where Davi plans to throw her hat into the ring to become the Dark Lord. Along the way, we, the reader, are sharing the experience via a breaking the 4th wall.

Davi herself is a tactical genius, but rather unhinged and lacks a filter. She comes off as winging it all the time, and may either have ADHD... or be generally psychologically broken (but yeah, 300+ resurrections later can do that to a person). I also found it odd that she had so many pop culture references (I'll leave those surprises for you to discover) yet couldn't remember much about her own life back on Earth.

I truly loved the story. I loved the supporting characters, diverse creatures, and the Dark Lord trials. Thought the confrontations and battles with other tribes were done well (tho, still felt like it should have been longer than 2 months...). But Chapters 10 & 11 tried to break me. The betrayal!

This book has footnotes every chapter. In general, they are unimportant. They are hilarious, however. And just feed into our understanding of Davi's character as they are an extension of her inner monologue. And I was okay with them from the start but only realized 57% of the way through that I only had to click on the number within the chapter to read the footnote and not wait until the end. Don't be me, learn and adapt sooner.

Triggers: Blood, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Torture, Talk of Suicide, Suicide attempt, Murder, War, Self harm, Death, Sexual Innuendos, Talk of Masturbation, Swearing, Cross-species relations
Nothing sexual is explicit – basically all implied, closed door

Disclaimer, I DNF'd at 15%.

I really wanted to like this one, but I think I liked the IDEA of it more than the actual book. I was excited to read about a hero turned villain, it sounded so fun! I'm all for a snarky FMC turned villain, but I found myself being annoyed more than anything, which was very disappointing. I found myself not caring for the FMC at all and I didn't understand why there were so many unnecessary footnote annotations.

I may come back and give this one another shot at some point, but for the moment anyway I am not feeling it.

Would you like to be stuck in a time loop? Davi sure isn't enjoying hers. She's on round 300-somethinig (is she keeping count correctly? Who can tell?) Davi hasn't been killed by the Dark Lord or their minions on every round of her life but it's been more often than not. So her question becomes, does she keep getting killed or does she become the killer?
I had a hard time connecting with Davi. Yes, there was some language. Yes, there was some sex. Yes, there is a surprising amount of pop culture for a woman stuck in a time loop. All are parts of this story that pointed at this being a catnip book for me. But. There just wasn't much character development for her. The sex is overused. The violence is overused. The footnotes were interesting but became annoying. I found myself skimming just to get to the end.

Three stars
This book comes out May 21, 2024
ARC kindly provided by Orbit Books and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

A very enjoyable, witty read!

I found this book to be an incredibly good time. The pacing, plot, humor all worked well for me and I found myself absolutely speeding through. If you're someone who is looking for a breath of fresh air on your TBR (or something out of the norm), I think this is the perfect think to add in for some fun.

Davi is a woman from Earth that due to unexplained reasons is in a fantasy world living her own groundhog day. But she has had enough. After her almost 300th death, she decides to try something new. In her previous lives, she was the Chosen One to help the humans defeat the Dark Lord's horde. But every time she fails. So, now she will be the Dark Lord.

So, for Davi herself. At moments, I liked her but it's exhausting staying in her head for the whole book. I think she could be toned down a bit; she is almost like that friend that is always trying to be the funniest and the sassiest. I usually don't mind or I even like footnotes but they are a big reason for why she is like that. They don't explain anything about the world, they don't expand upon Davi's personality (her personality is all over the story since she is the narrator and she breaks the 4th wall even in the main text), they are completely unnecessary. They are written as little jokes but they interrupt the flow of the story and add nothing. And there are a lot of them as there are pop culture references. Asides from that, Davi talks a LOT about sex, not only when she starts her relationship with Tsav (which I found pretty cute and was invested on) but about everyone and everything. And it's supposed to be funny but it's not my type of humour. So, it just bloated the book and interrupted the story that I was invested on. When Davi is narrating the story at hand, I liked her! She is a capable main character due to her numerous lives but she commits mistakes but keeps pushing forward and relies on her supporting characters that are really interesting. And when she is not trying too hard to be quirky and funny, she is fine. Her character development is reaaaaaaaally slow; it's just by the end, when she learns a few things that she starts showing something of an arc.

The story in itself I really liked. It's a nice quest story with a fun twist. I'm intrigued at what's going on with Davi especially with the discoveries that she made by the end. I really liked the world with the different creatures that were introduced, the fox people, the pyrvirs, the orcs, and the stone eaters and the writer shows the reader their different cultures; they feel like fully realized societies. The magic is interesting too. Especially the difference between how the magic people and the humans use it.

The enjoyment of the book relies a lot on if the reader likes Davi because her voice is really loud. A lot of people are comparing her to Deadpool. But I'd say that she is Deadpool on steroids.

Thank you Netgalley, author, and publisher for the ARC.

Davi is an American girl stuck in a timeloop fantasy. She’s killed, wakes up in a pool of water where a prophet tells her she is destined to stop the Dark Lord. Thousands of times later she decides that she should learn How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying (paper from Orbit). At first she has to die a few times to get minions, but eventually she has to face other contestants to prove she should be the dark lord. Django Wexler tells a tale that is just as much fun as it should be. I had a giggle all the way through. I’m eagerly waiting for the second half.

Davi is stuck in a time loop. She has lived hundreds of lives over close to a thousand years. It is always the same she wakes up being told it was prophesied she would help The Kingdom defeat the Dark Lord, and everytime she is killed and forced to live out a new life starting the same way. This time she has decided to go down a different path and become the Dark Lord herself and change her circumstances.

This book was so freaking fun. I loved every minute truly. This felt like a DnD campaign, and the humour was right up my alley. I loved Davi so much her inner monologue was was so funny and the footnotes were pure genius. I was entertained from page one and cannot wait for the second book in this duology.

Maybe the problem is me but I just couldn't get into this book. The main character was such a miss for me between everything being sexual and all the pop culture references. The book had such potential but I couldn't get past the 32523636376 footnotes (which are frustrating on a kindle) and the insufferable main character.

Enjoyed this book. The story was fast paced and fun. Personally I could have done without so many footnotes. As they were short quips it felt like a waste to page back and forth to read them. Nice to see isekai/litrpg stories from mainstream publishers. Here’s hoping for more. I’m interested in reading the sequel to this one.

Okay, so this was entirely not for me. I love high fantasy, and I love self-aware high fantasy, but this was just not enjoyable.

The idea is very interesting and intriguing! The Chosen One, who for hundreds of years has been trying to defeat the Dark Lord and failing, only to be reincarnated back at the beginning every time she dies, gets fed up and decides to become the bad guy instead. Unfortunately, I don't think this was executed well. The humor was crude, gory, and overwhelming (this coming from someone who has a very high tolerance for such things), and the world-building was odd. I understand the vagueness was to make this more relatable to other fantasy stories, because it parodies/satirizes them, but it just made the story feel so weak and surface=level.

I firmly believe that there is a person for every book, but I was not the person for this one. DNF.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC!

📚 #BOOKREVIEW 📚
How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying (Dark Lord Davi, Book 1) by Django Wexler
⭐️⭐️⭐️ / Pages: 428 / Genre: Humorous Fantasy
Audiobook Narrator: Jeanette Illidge
Duration: 14 hours

Davi is just a normal woman who woke up one day tasked with defending humanity from the Dark Lord for about a thousand years. Each time she loses by being killed, she reawakens in a time loop to where she started and has to do it all over again. Well, she’s had it. She’s done and this time she’s going to the dark side. This time she’s going to compete to become the Dark Lord herself. So she journeys across the land to compete for the position and finally end this nightmare. And along the way she gathers minions for her Dark Lord horde, who can help protect her on the trek as there are many dangerous creatures in this fantasy world. There are also magical gem stones that she can ingest that give her powers as well.

I enjoyed the casual lighthearted tone of this book, similar to the likes of Douglas Adams and Neil Gaiman but with profanity. I especially liked the creatures in this fantasy world, which have earth animal-like characteristics that resemble foxes, mice, and deer.

I’m not a fan of the overuse of asterisks, but in this case, those footnotes were pretty funny, but they were annoying to read so I switched to the audiobook when it became available on my trusty Libby app. And Jeannette Illidge did a great job narrating, adding in the footnotes along the way as well as giving each creature a different accent.

Overall I enjoyed this story but the number of time she had to try to get through the time loops was too many and got tedious after a while. It ended on a cliffhanger but I don’t know if I will continue this series. I wanted to love this one but it was really just all right for me.

Thank you @netgalley and @orbitbooks_us for my gifted copy.

Davi has this incredibly unique and totally not annoying issue where every time she dies, her life restarts and she gets to try yet again to achieve her "destiny." After over 200 tries at this whole hero thing, Davi decides to switch teams. Instead of defeating (or failing to defeat more accurately) the Dark Lord, Davi has decided to become the Dark Lord.

I enjoyed this story's concept a lot, it had a lot of funny moments that I enjoyed, and had great pacing. The story was entertaining in a lot of ways and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in a comedic adventure book. I wasn't super impressed though with the portrayal of a bisexual woman. I think the nympho queer woman is overplayed at this point and struggled with the way it was written in this book. I also wasn't a fan of the dozen or so footnotes in every chapter. I didn't like needing to flip back and forth to understand the subtext.

This book is funny - if you like satire and dark humour, which works for me. It took me a little bit to get into the flow of the story, only because I was initially thrown off by the narrator’s (Davi) voice. Once I got the hang of it, I was along for the ride and engaged until the end. My favorite part, the footnotes that allowed the reader to get an even closer glimpse into the end of this crazy character. I can’t say though, that after one thousand years of a time loop, that I would have been much different by the end. I feel that I came to understand the choices the narrator makes - chosen one, turned Dark Lord - though not in the way you think… that is what surprised me the most about Davi. She somehow manages to cling to who she is deep down. The characters Davi picks up along the way add well to the story. The plot was not predictable and I can’t wait to get my hands on the next instalment. I will (im)patiently wait for the continuation. What can I say, this one surprised me.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Orbit books for an e-arc of this title. The opinions expressed are honest and my own.

So I dived into this book on appearances alone. With the cover and the brief description given on netgalley I thought I was headed into a lighthearted fantasy with a dash of quirky "not your typical" protagonist. A fantasy revolving around a woman who keeps trying to protect the kingdom, to be the fated "chosen one" only to relive her failure over and over. For a "chosen one" to say "No, this time I'm being the bad guy," was exciting. You know that the bad girls have more fun and rumored to have great cookies.
Unfortunately, for me this fell into the I judged the book by its cover and got burned. I was expecting a breezy, quirky fantasy and got a somewhat toxic, offensive main character. This may be just a wrong audience situation. Django Wexler is a very talented writer. There were definitely pieces that kept me reading but overall the FMC was just too toxic for me. I really did not like/relate at all to her which keeps me from connecting with this book. The FMC was certainly a woman written by a man. Also the frequent pop culture references were very jarring. You have a FMC who has been portaled into a seemingly middle-ages village for at least a century, but she makes references to recent events. The world was just filled with too much profanity, violence, sexual assault, self-harm, etc for my taste. These issues were often taken to extremes. As I said before, Django Wexler, is very talented. I should have done more research. Lesson almost learned.

Thank you Orbit and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed the humor of Davi in this one. The premise of the plot was great! But at around 40%,Davis inner dialogue started to make the story drag. I feel like it made the book longer than it needed to be. I loved the ending! But because the middle was rough to read, it got a lower rating.

Perfection. Just loved this story and hope that I can read more in this universe as soon as possible. It’s like Groundhog Day but with murder, death, kill (and if you get that reference I’d like to be your friend). Just read this if you want a wonderful journey.

This book is dark, funny, and enthralling. If you've ever played an absolutely unhinged D&D campaign, How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying will make you feel right at home.

If topics of suicide or self harm are a tough topic for you, definitely heed the content warnings. This story follows Davi who had lived hundred of lifetimes and keeps finding herself back at the same starting point. Death and dying don't have the same consequences for her.

Overall, I thought this book was funny, smart, and such a fun ride. I'll definitely be reading more from Django Wexler in the future and I'm so grateful to NetGalley and Orbit Books for granting me access to an advanced reader copy!

I’d like to begin by saying, this book has so much potential in its story. I was immediately drawn in by the video game-like life the FMC was experiencing. There were many moments that made me giggle, the humor very sharp and quick. What made me lose steam with this book was the overall formatting (the lengths of the chapters! the sheer number of footnotes!), and the lack of relatability of the main character herself. As of writing this, I’m nearly 3/4 done, and not sure I will be picking it up to finish anytime soon, as other books are calling to me more. While it’s a current DNF, I do hope to try it out again.

Becoming the Dark Lord can’t be that hard - can it?
This book was a rollercoaster of excitement, adventure, struggles, and laughter. Wexler manages to perfectly combine action, fantasy, and a little sci-fi with a level of humor that had me laughing out loud.
The characters are flawed and loveable, the suspense had me on the edge of my seat. It really is an incredible, multi-genre story that has me eager for a sequel.