2.5/5 stars (rounded up)

For 3 days I tried to get into this book, and I struggled to get to 20% before I finally gave up. I will say, there is nothing particularly wrong with it, there were just a few things that I typically don’t care for. For example, the book is written in third person. I have a tough time relating to characters and becoming immersed in the storyline when books are written from this point of view. Also, the story flows between using modern dialect, to using “once upon a time” fairytale-type wording and it comes across as extremely jarring. I understand the author’s reasoning for this (Rae is a modern woman thrust into a fantasy world), but I would’ve preferred the book to be written as one or the other, not a strange combination of both.

Despite not caring for those stylistic choices, I do believe many readers would enjoy this. The plot is unique and exciting. Rae is dying from cancer. She and her younger sister have bonded over a fantasy book series for years. While Rae is in the hospital on her last leg, a woman approaches her and offers her a deal: if she enters the fantasy world from the book series and completes a task within a year, she will be cured. This offer is a no brainer for Rae, because without the offer, she will certainly die. Once she awakens within the story, she realizes that she has entered as the villainess. Rae must embrace her evil side if she is going to succeed and survive.

Thank you to Orbit Books, NetGalley, and the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. I have heard a lot of good things about this book, and I appreciate the opportunity to read and review it.

My thanks to Netgalley and Orbit Books for providing me with a digital copy for review.

I really liked the premise of this and liked Rae, the main character. However, the story felt all over the place, the secondary characters were not distinctive enough for me to differentiate between them, and the writing constantly took me out of the story. After the 56 percent mark I ended up skimming because I was curious enough to know how it ended but wasn’t invested enough to continue reading the rest of it. I think this book will land for some people, but unfortunately it did not for me.

Long live evil by Sarah Rees Brennan arc review I got this advanced reader copy though net galley. This was an extraordinary fantasy adventure for anyone who ever rooted for the villain of the story. Sometimes it’s good to be bad. Or aren’t most villains just misunderstood. Rae is a smart and brave girl who is unfortunately sick and dying but at least she still has her favorite book to get her through her hard life. When she is magically thrown in her favorite series right along her favorite character hero’s and villains alike. With the quest to find a magical flower that might be the key to saving her life. The catch is she turn out to be the villain of the tale. But don’t baddie have more fun sometimes. When she be able to save herself before it too late. This was fun and exciting tale with lots of twist and turns that had you guessing till the end and a shocking end. This was so entertaining and exciting. I mean who has ever want the chance to be inside your favorite series. I love the magical vibes and a strong female main character this was a great read definitely recommend it. If you love to root for villain 🦹‍♀️ who not all that bad this is the book for you ! It comes out July 30,2024

The prose itself is highly narrative and slightly overwritten. I stopped 13% in. It’s easy enough to read and follow. The concept is really fun.

I’d imagine this will land at 3-4 stars for the target audience, and 5 for the right readers. Some of the one-liners really shine, and it gives good vibes.

Thanks to NetGalley and Orbit for the ARC.

Thank you NetGallery for the arc.

This is like if Jumanji, Hamlet, The Cruel Prince and all zombie killer books had a baby. (A nice way of saying this had no original ideas). It was like the author picked fictional stories she loved and tried to morph them all together.

Jumanji
Obviously, becoming a book character is similar to getting trapped in a video game. The problem is, Jumanji just does it better. It’s that simple. So while reading, I seriously tried not to compared this to Jumanji but I did and I know that’s unfair but because of that this fell short.

Hamlet (Was this marketed as a Hamlet retelling? And I was just unaware?)
This book had major Hamlet energy. All the storybook characters talk similar to Shakespearean language but with a modern spin. I think if you love Hamlet and really any of Shakespeare’s plays you will appreciate the similar tone of the writing in this novel. As someone who isn’t a fan of Shakespeare, I actually liked the similarity because to me this book gave the vibe/atmosphere of Shakespeare’s writting but made it easier to understand. I also loved how our heroin talked like a regular person in the 21st century so it presented a nice contrast to the more old fashioned writing.

(spoilers for Hamlet below:)
Actual similarities to Hamlet:
The theatrics (especially with The Cobra) and how everything has to be a show made me think of when Hamlet put on that play to ask Claudius if he killed his father (Hamlet Sr). At about the 35% mark we learn about a betrayal which again makes me think of Claudius and Hamlet Sr. The names Horatia and Marius are used… do I need to say more? The most obvious example though, might be when the tragedy Romeo and Juliet is mentioned by name. Lastly, if you replace ghouls with ghosts and boom: you got yourself Hamlet.

The Cruel Prince
This one is more subtle but I would still like to argue that it’s there. Yes, Holly Black doesn’t own the rights to fantasy storybook politics but even the worlds were similar.

Zombie Killer Books:
Our author gets a pass on this one because lots of books reference zombies in pop culture. However, there’s a somewhat random event that is similar to what happens in pretty much every zombie movie ever made… imma leave it at that.

Beginning (the actual story)
Right off the bat, the reader is introduced to a bunch of information. Doesn’t help that each character has a name and then a nickname. So I have to ask, in the first two chapters was it really necessary to learn both for each character mentioned? Especially, since the mc hasn’t met any of them and there’s a couple that have no relevance which are only mentioned in the story (never actually present). In simple words, too much information thrown at the reader. Gosh, even our mc gets multiple names: Rachel, Rae, Rahela, evil step sister, her title/nickname (which I totally remember). It’s just too much = 5 names.
At first, I didn’t like that Rae was a previously existing character but she fits the character of Rahela for a lot of reasons. I liked that she had that escapism because let’s be real, everyone wants to escape their life once and awhile and no one has a better reason than our main character.


40%
Don’t get excited; nothing awesome happens. I just stopped reading because nothing was really happening. Technically, that’s not true but what was happening was personally boring to me. I really wanted the pedal on the medal. This was starting to lose me because it needed to pick up. At this point, I couldn’t help but think, this would be one of those books with a cool idea that isn’t executed as good as it could have been. Which then leaves the reader disappointed and longing for something better.

DNF 70%
I really tried to push through since this is an arc and all but I couldn’t. Overall this is a Hamlet retelling. I don’t know how it can’t be, because there is a difference between being inspired versus taking ideas from someone else… unfortunately I truly believe for this novel it’s the later. Saying that, if you love Hamlet and Shakespeare you are going to love this book, (probably because it’s almost the same book). However, I have heard the ending is fantastic so maybe something shocking happens. Though, not even that thought could make me finish this.

I could not vibe with the writing style of this book. It felt very immature despite the rather heavy setting at the beginning. The premise sounded extremely entertaining but I could not get past the author's style of writing. I dnf'd around about 20% in.

Just because I didn't vibe with the writing style doesn't mean you won't. So please give it a go!

This was weird.
I don't believe this is a good book: the pacing isn't great, the characters are archetypes, you can see the plot twists coming from miles ahead, etc.
But still I had a fantastic time! I was invested in the story, got attached to some minor characters and overall really enjoyed it.

The premise of this book was so, so good. It's a Western take on Chinese series like SVSSS. A character gets to go into the plot of the book they love and experience the life of a character. The idea that someone would become the villain and embrace that villainy was particular exciting. I love when the protagonist leans into their evil side. After Brennan's In Other Lands, I was eager to read this. I knew she could create amazing worlds, compelling characters, and an exciting plot.
But when I started reading, I felt my excitement deflate. Readers are introduced to a host of characters in a rush, information about both this new world and the real world are dumped on us in the most awkward way, and I was surprised I felt little to no connection for any of the characters. It felt like Brennan spent more time trying to create funny quips and angsty situations than to develop a story. I understand that Rae is from our world, but being constantly thrown pop culture references dragged me out of the story over and over again. Many authors are trying to use this gen-z TikTok lingo to get the reader onboard and potentially be relatable, but it felt forced like someone much older trying use slang to be cooler than they actually are. The plot itself jilted along unsteadily and it felt like the reader was being dragged along to the next scene that could be memed and turned viral. I really wanted to like the characters as well, but most of them felt like caricatures of tropes rather than actual people.
I liked the concept of the book and I appreciate Brennan for attempting to do this. Obviously, there were moments I was invested in. There were times were the dialogue was actually funny, the character dynamic perfect, and the plot exciting enough for me to turn the page. However, those enjoyable moments were far and few between. I'm grateful for NetGallery providing me this ARC to review. I will say that I've read a lot of positive reviews as well and I'm glad that others enjoyed this book. It just wasn't for me.

I utterly loved reading this book! Villain stories are really interesting to read, espcailly in this case were there are valid reasons why they're choosing this path. This book is about anger, of expectations, and I was agreeing with everything she was saying, because it was so very unfair!

I know that Sarah Rees Brennan had cancer, and you can really feel what she wants you to when she describes it and what the treatment was like in this book. That Rae wakes up in the body of character from her favourite series...yeah, it was a great set up for a story!

Watching Rae use her knowledge of the series to maneuver things to benefit her was just so great! That her grasp on the events and characters of the first book isn't great, I loved it! Seeing her gather her crew, and spend this time in this world, it was all so good to read!

That ending and reveal, yeah, that was just so great! We had hints that it was going to go in that direction, and I utterly loved it! And I'm so excited to see what that means the series is going to go in the future, and I need to find out!

Loved reading this book and I can't wait for more!

The book was chaotic.

I'm not sure how to rate it, to be honest. I had such high expectations I might be forcing myself to like it more than I did but it definitely fell short.

The premise is amazing; girl gets isekai-ed in a very dark novel and aims to be the baddest villain. It started amazingly too; Rae's battle with cancer and her whirlwind of emotions was a punch to the gut.

I found that the writing made it more confusing than it should have been. It felt too juvenile for a universe this dark, convoluted and once again, chaotic as hell.

It was hinted very early on that because of the cancer and treatments Rae was losing her memory. She didn't remember details very much and while she may have read the book hundreds of times with her sister, she didn't even remember the characters' names. Because of that, the setting felt all over the place at first. Between info dumps, modern lingo here and there, and a main character that wasn't even trying to hide the fact she didn't belong, the pacing felt off and the story was hard to follow.

Fortunately, a few chapters in and once used to the writing, it got better and kept improving as chapters went. The seemingly stereotypical characters were more three dimensional than expected and the hot mess the book was took us on for quite an intense -and sometimes funny- ride.

I just could not get into this no matter how hard I tried. I found the heroine to be very annoying and I hated the way she spoke. I know she's from the real world, but did she have to talk like the world's most annoying teen? No attempt to blend into this weird fictional world, like surely she would be afraid of getting found out and executed. Although it's listed as adult fantasy, it reads as very YA.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions within are my own.

***

"So Sarah Rees Brennan is doing a Western isekai!" That was my reaction when I first heard of this book's concept. And I was excited. I expected and wanted all the fun tropes without the gross fanboy power fantasies which frequently accompany them.

And that's exactly what I got! I chewed through this book in about two days, at one point remarking "if I stop turning the pages, I might die," like I was starring in a wacky nerd version of Speed. This book is very tropey, frequently hilarious, often not taking itself very seriously - but that doesn't mean it lacks stakes or depth. Far from it. There was one scene in particular which would have had me bawling on the floor, if I weren't sneak-reading it at work. Work has a lot to answer for. How dare it make me suppress my sobs?

The characters were generally very good, some extremely lovable (the Cobra, my perfect Sinamon Roll) Some loathsome (Octavian's self-entitled, redemptive-quality-free ass.) Some revealing surprising depth (Lia, the twins.) I also particularly loved Key, both as a character in his own right and a <i>really</i> quality example of a potent romantic trope - the monster, who is <i>yours</i>, and who would never ever hurt you, but who would absolutely shit-murder anyone who did you wrong. What can I say? I'm into it.

I loved Rae about 80% of the time, though she had a couple of slips I will talk about later in this review. In particular, this might be a weird thing to say, but what I loved the most was the character she <i>played</i>. Not quite Rae. Not quite Rahella, but a fictional creation Rae put forward like an Atlus-style Persona. Where I loved Rae herself the most, however, was Brennan's raw and heartbreaking reflection on what dying of cancer felt like. The weakness, the helplessness, the anger, the feelings of abandonment. Reading the afterword, I realized why that element felt as real as it did, and I am so, so glad Brennan appears to be in remission. And that she seems to have had more people in her corner than Rae, while she was sick.

It was also great seeing the turgid and often-misogynistic setting of the book-within-a-book through a feminist lens. Rae is a generally genre-savvy modern protagonist, fully aware of moral double-standards, slut shaming, and toxic purity culture, and she is not going to let bad characterization or a shitty world pass by without comment.

This does, however, bring me to an element I liked less. Namely, sometimes Rae's social awareness would inexplicably slip. Honey, you are <i>aware</i> of slut shaming. So why are you blaming your sexual feelings on the evil slutty body you are in? Bodies don't work like that! There was another passage which, in context, proved to be Rae using someone else's Madona/whore complex to manipulate them, but on a sentence level read like her justifying this attitude as 'normal.' I doubt that's what either Rae or Brennan meant, and I wish an editor had caught, tightened, and clarified that bit. Rae's slips in awareness, which made me want to give her a good shaking, contributed to me liking her less in those moments than I otherwise might have.

I also thought that, while most of the POV shifts added, Emer's kept feeling unnecessary. Emer is a great character idea in <i>concept.</i> For a particularly fantastic version of that character type, I will forever stan Margaret Owen's Vanja, from Little Thieves. In practice, however, Emer's sections left me bored and annoyed more than anything else. Maybe she will improve in the sequel?

A couple of other down sides included a generally weak first chapter. Because we were set in the real world, I started examining what I was reading through a real-world lens, and let me tell you, it did not help. First and foremost, was I the only one who really wanted to slap Alice? Your sister is dying! And you're getting shirty at her for being bitter about the fact that she's dying? The fuck? My dislike of the real-world person Rae was supposedly closest to meant that I did not give a fig about her ever returning to the real world, which lowered those stakes a fair bit. I also found myself wondering and trying to analyze exactly who Time of Iron was <i>for</i> in-world. This fusion of Elric of Melnibone and fairy tale ripoff did not sound like something which would do well in a modern market, let alone have a thriving fandom and even a musical. It... honestly sounded like something written by R. A. Salvatore, who has nnnnnnnot aged well, let's leave it at that.

But none of that mattered the moment Rae crossed over into the world of the story. The pace picked up, the fun picked up, I started caring too much about what was happening to nitpick. Which, in the end, is the greatest compliment of all. I <i>cared</i>. I still care. I wish I could time travel so that I could read the sequel right now immediately. Please, Orbit, please give me an ARC of that sequel as well, when it's available, or I might cry!

It's been a while since I had this much fun with a book. What a fun and upbeat and totally original storyline! 4.5 stars!!

The book was first brought to my attention over a year ago by C.S. Pacat, and then when the summary came out - “She [Rae] wakes in a castle on the edge of a hellish chasm, in a kingdom on the brink of war. Home to dangerous monsters, scheming courtiers and her favourite fictional character: the Once and Forever Emperor. He’s impossibly alluring, as only fiction can be. And in this fantasy world, she discovers she's not the heroine, but the villainess in the Emperor's tale.” - I was all in for this wild ride.

I was a cackling and highlighting fiend for the first fourth of this book as the story is set up. Rae, being sent into her favorite fiction world, was a meta-signaling good time. Sure, I didn’t take her seriously but I loved being in her POV. Lines like <i>“Book characters were dangerously attractive in the safest way. You didn’t even know what they looked like, but you knew you liked it”</i> and <i>”Everyone who thinks books will make women date assholes underestimates us” </i> endeared her to me instantly. Sarah Rees Brenan had more than a few things to say about the book community and she did so brilliantly with Rae.

As Rae stumbles through the fictional world, passing herself off as a prophet while also trying to find her way back to her own world, the hilarity continues and the characters around her - her evil minions Key and Emer - were fun...but the plot began to crawl. Oh, how it crawled. It’s made clear from early on in the book what Rae needed to do to return to her world alive and well, and even though Rae has a plan and is ready to spring into action, the book does not spring. It slowly meanders with a sexy hip sway and a wink, giving the reader <i>just</i> enough - character development, twists, world-building - to keep them wanting more.

But by the 50% mark, I was fatigued by the chaos Rae was creating and the lack of plot movement. When a book starts feeling its length - when I’m constantly checking how much longer is left in a book - it’s not a good sign. There was also a chapter where - due to the books being made into a musical IRL - Rae and another character (The Cobra) break out into song and dance to move the plot along. You read that right - there’s a musical number in the middle of the book. And while this might have been charming with more plot movement up to this point, I really couldn’t believe what I was reading.

If the reader can make it through this musical number, the plot turns more serious and picks up in pace for the back half - what was a silly fantasy story becomes more of a traditional fantasy in its prose (and I think that shift was artfully done!) as Rae and her minions must face the plot-twists they’ve put into action. Can Rae leave these fictional characters to their doom and save her neck fictionally and IRL? And what happens when it turns out that Rae was wrong about her beloved Emperor and that in rushing to the point of the story, she also messed with his development? The book ends on a banger that will leave the reader wanting more and I do think that the last fourth of this book is worth the meandering plot in the middle, but I can see readers putting the book down when they come to the musical number - I nearly did.

For me <i>Long Live Evil</i> was a win, and I can’t wait for others to read this book once it comes out!

Thank you to Orbit Books and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

My feelings after reading this book are wide-ranging and often conflicting. I've settled on a 3 star, middle-of-the-road rating.

The writing doesn't match the ambition of the novel. With the story, Brennan is trying to ask questions about what makes a villian and playing around with fantasy genre conventions, but then then chooses to write in this often times excessively silly manner. For a book that is marketed as Adult, it comes across as YA in both that it seems like a parody of many YA fantasies and also immature.

I know I won't be the only one irritated by the excessive inclusion of modern lingo in the characters' dialogue It seemed very try-hard, but also unrealistic. Never met anyone who said AF in real life unless they were deliberately trying to be funny. Besides after living somewhere for a length of time, you begin to adopt the populations' speech patterns. Again it made the book seem more YA. The humor was not funny to me.

This brings me to one of my major points of contention with the main character Rae. She is written so over-the-top. She ostensibly knows the world of Eyam. She should be aware of how brutal it is. She enters the book the day before Rahela is viciously executed, but doesn't attempt to fit into the world. She just blunders through without a care. The woman who sent her to Eyam clearly says if she doesn't get the flower, it's game over for her. Part of this does seem to be intentional by the author, but, once again, Brennan just goes to far with it. Rae is cringe-worthy in scenes. Also, her conviently not having a thourough grasp of the first book in the Time of Iron series had me rolling my eyes.

The best writing regarding Rae were the parts about her struggle with cancer and how it broke her down not just physically, but in all aspects of life. I understand that the author herself is a cancer survivor. In this case, her unfortunate relationship with her own character really allowed her writing to shine through. In general, there was such a tonal disconnect between Rae and the rest of the story.

The other characters generally fell into one of three categories: irritating, predictable characterization, or sparked my interest. Some fell into more than one. However, it was mostly the first two.

Plot wise, I will admit to being engaged throughout the length of the book. Usually, I am bemoaning how boring the middle section of a novel is. In this case, I did find the pacing to my personal liking. Nothing unconventional occured and plot points I may not have personally liked happened, but the book did manage to hold my attention. The ending sets up a sequel which I will most likely end up reading.

The setting was another aspect of the book I thought was well-done. Eyam with it's dramatic names, ravine full of zombies, and ancient prophecy sounds like a classic, extravagant fantasy world. However, the characters from the world are entirely earnest about their reality stopping it from being a full on parody. Honestly, I want to read Time of Iron myself. Seems like a bonkers good time.

I believe I've blathered on long enough. Long Live Evil is a flawed but not meritless novel. This is a book I definitely recommend to read at your own discretion. I suspect this will be a story that falls into either the love or hate category for a majority of readers.

What a fun book! This book took on a whole new view point of the villan and I’m here for it. It took me a few chapters to really get into it but then I couldn’t put it down. Long live evil!

Seems I'm not the only one struggling. This is a DNF at 12% for me as well.

I don't know about the rest of it, but this book is frontloaded with boring fill-in details. The tedium immediately dampened the silliness of the premise, along with any remaining interest I had in it. And, boy, was it sure trying real hard to be funny.

Despite Time of Iron being a series she's nerded-out over with her younger sister, Rae has only a vague memory of the world-building details of Eyam. How convenient. I didn't like this, it was too obviously an excuse to info-dump.

The introductions of Key and Emer (the first people Rae meets in her book world) are so skimmed-over. I don't know who these characters are, why I should care about them, and again Rae can't contribute anything because of that convenient plot amnesia. There's no intrigue.

Just not for me, this one.

I was so excited to be approved for this title, and in the end, DNF’ed it.
I wanted so badly to like the story, but I find the writing confusing and convoluted. There are too many characters introduced in the first chapters for me, I can’t keep them all straight. And none of them are described memorably enough for me to want to know more. The world building leaves something to be desired, it feels like information is being given out like spaghetti thrown at a wall in hopes that something sticks.
I love the villains, but Rae is just not hitting the mark. The modern slang is jarring and feels out of place, and her attitude about what is happening feels inconsistent and too easy going for a character that I had hoped would have a strong backbone.
Missed the mark for me, but I hope it finds its audience! Thank you for the opportunity to try.

I didn’t end up finishing this. While the story was interesting and I did laugh out loud a few times, the writing was extremely convoluted and I couldn’t really tell if it was supposed to be YA or adult. I think there were just too many characters introduced at once.

I can't quite decide how to rate this book, and I have a lot of broad feelings about it overall, so I'm just going to land it somewhere in the middle and call it a day.

I was initially skeptical of the premise of this story, I worried it would be a non-serious "tiktok" esque book with youth speak that went over my head and characters that were a little too silly for me to fully connect with. In a lot of ways, this was basically what happened. However, I can see the overall themes that the author was trying to aim for. I can see the homages to the fantasy genre as a whole, particularly the "good vs evil" archetype, and how they were being twisted the further you get into the story.

I think the vision was a bit ambitious for this writing style, and it wasn't executed the way I would have loved it to be. I very much don't enjoy when an author spoon feeds the reader information instead of trusting that they can read between the lines, and info dumping is my least favourite way to world build. I found myself frequently distracted by how I was being *told* about the story instead of simply shown, it pulled me right out of what could have been a really immersive story. While I know this is more of a lighthearted fantasy read and it's not comparable to a grand epic fantasy novel, I think the writing was a bit too juvenile to make me care as much as I wanted to.

Based on the synopsis I originally thought this book was comparable to How To Become The Dark Lord and Die Trying, which wasn't my favourite book of the year, and ultimately I think that proved true in a lot of ways. I definitely think it had a lot of similarities that could be enjoyable for people who loved that book.