Holy. Shit. This book was AMAZING! Perfectly meta and humorous while also pulling ties and stringing together a masterful plot with a twist I COULDN’T BELIEVE I DIDN’T SEE! I end this book with my jaw literally hanging on the floor.

DNF @25%

I don't like being thrown into stories with little to no information. I didn't care about the characters and I could hardly follow or care about anything happening.

This is such a difficult book to review! It's fun, camp, chaotic, and way over the top. It's self aware, but somehow that doesn't completely save it from itself. (Camp is great, but I need an emotional hook to some degree.) I did end up DNFing at around 20%, but there's a good chance I'm going to come back to it when I'm in the mood for an unserious read.

I couldn't help but compare it to In Other Lands, which also features a prickly, hard-to-love-but-extremely-loveable protagonist. I think the main difference though is that Rae is 20 here, and we're introduced to Elliot as a literal child in In Other Lands and watch him grow and mature as a person. I want to root for Rae, but she isn't afforded the same depth. I did absolutely feel for Rae and felt the lived trauma in each page when she's in the hospital.

I actually have no idea how this book ended up in the mainstream as much as it is because it has *such* fanfic vibes, I really have no idea how the general public who weren't raised on ff.net or Ao3 will react. (That said, if you love books with a chronically online feel, pop culture references that feel like a love letter to fanfic: pick this one up.)

Fantasy Romance that features a woman dying of cancer who accepts a magical bargain that lets her enter the world of her favorite fantasy series, only to discover she's not the heroine, but the villainess.

1/5 stars: This is a stand-alone by Rees Brennan which is a Fantasy Romance that features a twenty year old who's dying of cancer who's offered a second chance to live: enter the world of her favorite fantasy series, that she never actually read all of, and return with a magical cure. Only thing, once she “arrives” she discovers she's been dropped into villainess's body and she's about to be killed off. She sets out to bring together the wildly disparate villains of the story under her evil leadership, plotting to change their fate. But as the body count rises, it begins to look like she and her allies may not survive to see the final page. Rees Brennan's writing and character work are nicely done and the world building's interesting. And although there is plenty of sarcasm and witty one-liners, Rees Brennan does tackle some heavy subjects, so take care and check the CWs. Unfortunately, this just wasn't a book for me; leading me to DNF it at 15%.

I received this eARC thanks to Orbit Books | Orbit in exchange for an honest review. Publishing dates are subject to change.

as a villainess isekai enjoyer and sarah rees brennan fan i was ready for this book from go. i simply do not tire of stories of rl world girlies tossed into book villainesses working hard to avoid their imminent demises! the fun thing about long live evil is while it tackles the isekai genre with style it inflects it with more western fantasy influences. this is what you get if you cross diana wynne jones' dark lord of derkholm with villains are destined to die! rae's out here reading western fantasy tropes for filth and i stan

i also enjoyed this strong argument made by this book that there's nothing sexier than a man who swears undying loyalty and to murder the world at your command. so true bestie! love to see multiple characters shouldering the weight of morality for their murder pets!

5 stars

thank you netgalley and the publisher for giving me access to this arc for my honest opnion

sadly i do not think this book was meant for me.

i requested due to the premise and it seemed like something that i would enjoy. but it felt like a chore to read. i got about 15% into this book and had to stop reading. the fmc just seemed so whiny and teenager-ish to me even though this book is set in the new adult category. i think in the future i will try and maybe reread this book as it was something that i was super interested in.

Thank you to Orbit Books and NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book for review!

DNF @ 12%

I was so excited about this book when I first heard about it, but unfortunately, it wasn’t for me. From the synopsis, I was expecting this to be an adult portal fantasy with a fun cast of characters going on an adventure and doing evil. What I got instead was a weird mix between a very serious tone in our world and a joke in the fantasy world. The main character, Rae, behaved much younger than I would’ve anticipated for a 20-year-old (especially with the situation she was dealing with in our world), which gave the book more of a young adult feel than adult.

The other major struggle I had was that I didn’t believe in the fantasy world from nearly the beginning. I had hoped that it was a situation where the fantasy world in the main character’s favorite series was real and the books were written by someone who came from that world and ended up in ours. Instead, I couldn’t help but feel that none of the events in the fantasy world were actually happening and it was all a figment of her imagination brought on by her brain trying to help her cope with her situation in our world.

Overall thoughts: The humor fell flat for me, it read younger than I was expecting, and I would’ve found it more interesting to read the main character’s favorite fantasy series than read about her getting transported into that world.

This was so funny?! 

A woman is transported to the land of a popular fantasy series (think acotar) but ends up in the body of the villain.  I loved that she hasn't read the series herself, making for some comical moments as she figures out what to do. 

I can relate to not having read the most popular books and so I thoroughly enjoyed her viewpoint 😂 I'll definitely reread this one once it's released. 

Would you be the hero or the villain?! I am pretty firm in my alignment with chaotic good.

I’m sorry to say that I did not finish this book. I loved the synopsis and was SO excited to read this! Everything about it captured my attention.

The writing was challenging for me. It felt… lackluster and half-hearted for such a serious event happening to the female main character. She’s on her death bed and yet, I didn’t care, because she didn’t seem to really care.
Trying to understand a fictional book (world building, characters, plots) on top of the actual fictional book I was reading felt overwhelming and downright exhausting at times. It was an overload of information.

SPECIAL THANKS TO NETGALLEY AND THE PUBLISHER FOR LETTING ME READ THIS ARC IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW

Have you ever liked a villain more than the hero? Have you ever wanted to go into your favorite book series? Would you be willing to give up your life in the real world for a life (possibly even a place as a character with lots of page time) in your favorite book ?

If you answered "Yes" to any of this questions look no further!

This book is just that. Our main character Rae is a 20 year old dying from cancer who bonded with her sister over their love for a book series called "Time of Iron". One day Rae is feeling a bit too weak and a stranger shows up by her hospital bed with a deal of a life time. If she is willing to go into her favorite fictional book placed in the body that must suits her and take a flower that blooms once a year she will wake up cured. Rae takes the deal thinking it couldn't be that hard if you have read the book enough times to know how the plot goes.

In and Out mission.

Or so she thinks...

Rae runs into some trouble when she wakes up in the body of the villainess, who just so happens to be getting executed that day (YIKES) in order to get the flower and cure herself in the real world things are going to have to change in the story. Rae must come to terms with her small changes effecting the whole book. The book(s) she read may not fully be what she experiences during this adventure. Just as well as the character she knew from the book may not be exactly as she imagined them to be. Some may even be other people who took the same strangers deal.

Review time!
Im going to be honest here the first quarter of this book had be questioning if i enjoyed this and wanted to keep reading due to having to learn a world the character knew while also reading the character relearn the world in new eyes and something else. It got real confusing and boring at times reading the main character fangirl over fictional characters or try to convince other characters she was totally who her body showed her as in the mirror (yup i am totally this woman... but remind me if i say something out of character i....hit my head the other day). Things got more interesting when the original plot of "Time of Iron" got changed and was no longer what the main character knew of.

I'll admit i got the clues to the end reveal but didn't accept them the whole time because the math didn't add up in my mind. It was like the twist was waving a big flag saying "RIGHT HERE" but i got distracted looking at the flowers instead. I must admit this makes me like the evil villain even more.

Will i be reading the next books?

YES

This book has such a fun premise, and the characters are certainly entertaining. This book has the bizarre chaotic energy that probably any of us would be bringing if we were magically transported into our favorite books. There is certainly a lot of heart to this story.

I think that there is a group of readers that will adore this book and the overall vibes, but unfortunately it was not for me. I found myself always wanting just a little bit more and waiting for something, anything to really happen. I went into this wanting to love it, but it ultimately wasn’t a good fit for me.

My dearest darling wife was kind enough to request the ARC, and I cannot express how much I enjoyed this book. I was admittedly a little skeptical of the premise at first, but as a long-time fan of Rees Brennan’s work (dating all the way back to the Demon’s Lexicon days), I should have known to trust the process. Long Live Evil is a delightful take on the traditional portal fantasy, but with a villainous twist. As ever, Rees Brennan excels at turning tropes on their head, making you question who is truly a hero and who a villain and creating some truly spectacular character development in the process.

Let’s talk about Rae, our protagonist. Diagnosed with cancer in high school, now in her 20s and unlikely to make it another year, and she is PISSED. Pissed at her body for betraying her, pissed at her friends and father who decided a loved one with cancer was just too stressful and walked out, and mostly pissed at the universe for taking her away from her sister, who she loves more than anyone in the world. So when a mysterious woman appears at her hospital bed and offers her the chance at a long healthy life, she jumps at the opportunity. The catch? She gets ported into her and her sister’s favorite Game of Thrones-esque fantasy series with the mission of stealing a specific magical artifact. If she can’t steal it in time, or if she dies in the story, she dies in reality life. And oh yeah, she’s bamfed into the body of the villainess who’s supposed to be executed in the morning.

Rees Brennan uses this premise to craft a gorgeous exploration of the butterfly effect and fate vs free will. Rae knows how the story should go, who ends up with whom and who wears the crown in the end…until changing the villainess’s fate changes everything. Characters are behaving in ways they shouldn’t. Plot points are happening too soon or not at all. And after being so relieved to finally, for the first time in years, have some control over her future, Rae is thrust back into a maelstrom of chaos she cannot predict.

All of these heavy-sounding themes are countered by Rees Brennan’s signature one-liner quips that keeps the story light and fun until she really wants to hit you over the head with feelings. The characters are truly a masterwork of development, starting as classic fantasy tropes and gradually revealing the deep personalities beneath the stereotyping, and the ending is a gut punch in the best way possible. I was so thrilled when I heard Rees Brennan was coming out with another book, and this exceeded all expectations. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Long Live Evil has a good foundation but it didn’t hit the mark for me. There were a plethora of characters but not much substance to any of them and I didn’t really connect to any. Even in light of what will follow, I think the book still remains a compulsive read that is more like a comedic fantasy than a regular fantasy.

The fantasy story Rae enters in LONG LIVE EVIL is more of a comedy than a fantasy, and I didn't always find it engaging enough to justify the lack of engaging, sensical worldbuilding in the comedy.

In the early rounds, there was a lot of smart-alecky banter, which I did chuckle at the first few times, however, the energy remained for a long time beyond the point when it made sense as well.

Throughout the story, there is a real struggle between trying to be funny and irreverent and trying to be clever and profound. I felt that the series-in-a-series had a little too much self-awareness to strike the right balance, so I couldn't commit properly to it.

Finally, I thought the cleverness was lacking, and I would have preferred to have seen the idea of evil and feminine places in stories explored with depth and nuance.


I would like to thank both NetGalley and Orbit Books for providing the eARC.

A fantastic exploration of genre and what evil truly is.

What a book. I have trouble coming up with an adequate description of it for someone who is curious. In so many ways (apart from the author herself not appearing in the pages) I want to scream: this is it's own genre...gonzo fantasy! Is it grimdark? Yeah....a little. But not really. Is it a romance? No...and yet, in some compelling ways, incredibly romantic. Is it a comedy? No...but it is hilarious. Is it a meta commentary on fantasy itself? Kinda - and yet, it is a compelling story all its own. Is it over the top? Sure - but that's the point! Is it a deep exploration of the concept of what evil is? Yes. And no. And yet still yes. Is it campy? Absolutely - and yet you won't care...because you're having too much fun. Is it a novel about pain and what it means to be a survivor? 100% absolutely.

On the surface, this is a standard portal fantasy - our "heroine" is offered a chance to escape death in the "real world" and escape to the world inside a popular work of fiction. There...she will have one chance to acquire the item that can allow her to return to the real world, cured of what ails her. Along the way she'll be surrounded by the characters she knows from the book(s) she's read...and determined not to suffer the fate of the character she now inhabits.

And yet...that summary does not come even close to describing this madcap glorious mess of an adventure. It is filled with a world very odd compared to our own, but yet oddly familiar. Side characters with amazing backstories. Set pieces of gripping action. Swoonish moments of romance. It manages to be self-contained and yet with so many hooks for the future. And there is real heart to this novel - it is clearly written by a cancer survivor and the choices Rae makes can often be seen directly in that light. I need the next part...like tomorrow!

Thank you to Netgalley and Orbit for the ARC of this book, out in August 2024!

I started off confused by this book. But probably 1/3-1/2 way through it finally clicked that part of the point of the book is that it's a meta situation, the main character is kind of an idiot, and she ALSO doesn't really realize or take the plot or characters seriously and that is OK. The characters are supposed to be tropey and flat because that's how she views them. But everyone develops, both 'real' Rae, and the character-characters she is interacting with. I quite enjoyed it, overall. I think it would be a truly excellent book club book, as there would be lots of discussion possible between different reading styles, whether or not everyone saw the twists coming, whether they enjoyed the characters immediately or never got to it. I might be putting this one forward for my own book club for exactly that reason.

3.25 ⭐️ this was a ton of fun! Felt a little YA at times with how dumbed down some of the character archetypes were but I loved the blend of “real-world” with fantasy. Probably will pick up the next book because the ending was so huge!

Thank you NetGalley and Orbit Publishing for the advanced copy.

I'll admit - I had high hopes that this would be a new favorite. Unfortunately, that was the not the case. Still, I did like it for the most part! The writing style took me a good while to adjust to and was a little more flippant than I was expecting to be honest. There were several parts that had me laughing out loud though which is pretty rare for me. This isn't the book for everyone but it was (mostly) fun.

Thank you to Netgalley and Orbit for this eARC for review! For the first 25% of this tale, I was not convinced or enthralled by the story. Our FMC, Rae, was loud, obnoxious, and not assimilating very well into the “story” into which she was thrown, but I grew to understand that was the whole point. Bawdy talk of boobs and curves aside, I enjoyed seeing Rae grow as a character both within her impromptu tale as well as in her own mind. Villains are not always a lovable, morally grey characters. They have sharp edges and sharper wits. I thoroughly enjoyed how this story developed, with Rees Brennan winding my heart and allegiances through all her well-planned hoops. While initially hard to commit, I’m very thrilled to have finished this hopeful story of villainy with high hopes for the next installment.

Long Live Evil is my first read from the author and was so entertaining!! Rae is so funny, I love her as a FMC and as a fellow bookworm, she's so relatable!! The Emperor is so hot and and grumpy, he's definitely making my book boyfriends list. The dialogue with everyone was also super funny! The side characters were all very loveahle

Overall, I felt like the pacing was okay, but things felt a little fast. Things were moved on from too fast without a proper explanation and we needed more world building because I still feel like I barely know anything about their world. Another thing is that the romance was way too fast and sudden to my liking. The writing also felt a little too YA to be rated adult for my taste and sometimes felt super childish.

Despite all that, the ending was really good and it made me super excited for the sequel!!!

I love, love, LOVE the premise of this book. I love the whole bizarre Narnia-type situation, the idea of making the villain the center of the story and giving her the spotlight. I love that the behavior of our main character is exactly like how one of us would behave if we were thrown into the middle of our favorite high-fantasy series. It's so goddamn clever. It was just too long. Too many unnecessary scenes, too many random chapters from different points of view, etc. It was also a little confusing as an outsider looking in on this fantasy world's lore and having to rely on the protagonist to tell the story inside the story. It's a lot! And I think Rees Brennan absolutely pulls it off, it just gets to be a little too long there towards the back half.