I had very high expactations for Long Live Evil: first because the whole promise of the book was irresistible, second because I knew how Sarah Rees Brennan was a good author and third because the reviews that I've read where very positive. Imagine then my surprise when I still got blown away by this gem of a book! After reading so many stories and fanfictions, this is one hell of a compliment, specially when Brennan managed to surprise me with her plot twists <3

Irrevent, diverse and packing an emotional punch, Long Live Evil is a book with an amazing ensemble cast, evil schemes, funny banter and a lot of reflections about what it means to really live and to be a villain when everyone is just trying their best to survive. I loved Rae to pieces and all the villainous friends she makes on the way (but, of course, one evil minion is my favorite one). I can't wait to read more!

Thank you so much Orbit and Netgalley for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review!

DNF at 25%.

This is going to be a divisive one, in that it will either work very well for people, or it will not work at all. Sadly, I was firmly in the latter camp.

I appreciate the idea behind this book and the imagination of it, even if I ended up not appreciating the book itself. A terminally ill girl is able to enter the pages of her favourite story and finds herself a villain in the story, which she decides to fully embrace. The book does not take itself seriously at all, so I could see someone having a lot of fun with this.

I did not have much fun with the tone of the writing nor the main character. Rae annoyed me and just seemed . . . kind of unbearable as a person. I feel bad speaking ill of a fictional cancer patient, but I truly don’t have a good thing to say about how her character resonated with me. She’s having fun with her circumstances and making the most of it, I guess?? That’s a semi-positive thing to say about her?

The writing has a very specific tone, but beyond that, it’s also awkward. A choice passage:

And, Rae recalled with a shock like walking down steps she relied on at night only to find air instead of stair, a new guard suggested how the lady should be punished.

Excuse me, what? This is just not a good sentence.

When I talk about the specific tone of the book, that’s where I think this will be most divisive.

“Seriously, you will be powerful A.F.”
The king’s brow wrinkled. “A.F.?”
“As foretold,” Rae intoned hastily.

And almost the entire first quarter of the book is written like that; I am confident the remaining 75% also is but I just couldn’t bring myself to read more. This book was very resolutely not for me.

However, I do hope others will find this to be a fun and cartoon villainous ride, and I thank the publisher, Orbit, and NetGalley for the ARC.

I love me a good fantasy and the fact this had a FMC who was also a villain was chefs kiss. This will surely hit off.

Thank you so much NetGalley for accepting my request to read and review this one early.

I am so sad but this just did not work for me at all in the slightest.

It takes some great writing for me to enjoy characters from earth who fall into “fantasy” worlds and it takes even more for that to work if the fantasy world is a work of fiction in itself.

I just find it makes no sense in terms of timelines.

My biggest issue was how she was so calm about being propositioned to enter a fictional world in the first place. That entire event happens in like two paragraphs. I hate when something so insanely impossible happens to a protagonist and they don’t even blink an eye. HELLO?

Not to mention we are slapped into this fictional world, with zero actual understanding, and in the spam of 20 pages we are introduced to around 300 characters out of the blue and expected to follow their interaction creations.

We are given such a tiny look into this world before the protagonist enters it and yet we rely on that to follow along.

Phrases like “Holy shit, Jesus, Batman, don’t kill me” really just did not help this book either. I was not a fan of the writing style at all.

Honestly, confusing as heck.

And I get the people saying “oh it’s camp it’s fun don’t take it too seriously” I get it, but that works great in movies, in books less so.

I tried and tried to keep reading it but every time I did I just felt like I was doing homework and I knew if I finished it I would be giving it the rantiest review so decided to DNF.

I'm really sorry to the author but I had to mark this as a DNF.
I struggled with the writing, couldn't get my head around the world and didn't find the humour particularly funny.

I'm gutted because I had high hopes for this one.

I loved this! A great portal fantasy where our main character is placed inside a written story. Everything the main, and secondary character think is fixed can change and the story becomes very different underway. The authors experience with writing is obvious and the language is very good. Humor is also a big part of the book, somtimes poignant, sometimes laugh out loud. The author is talented at balancing her main chacters views in spite of also showing us how one dimensional a books characters can be. It's obviously not as fun or easy to be a villain as or main character first thought, but all in all, the vipers ar better together.

This was a new author for me and I am so greatful for the recommendation from a friend and the opportunity to recieve this book from netgalley for review. The ending promises a second book is in the wings and I can't wait!

I loved the premise of Long Live Evil and the opening chapters quickly drew me into Rae’s world and her situation.
Rae is terminally ill with cancer and spending most of her time alone in hospital visited only by her sister who reads to her from their favourite book series. She is offered the chance by a strange woman to escape into that fantasy world and she takes it.
When she wakes up, she discovers that she in the body of the villainess of the story. Not only that, but she is due to be executed the next day so she really has to start thinking quickly about how she can save herself.
I really enjoyed this part of the story and Rae’s confusion when she has to deal with a healthy that is completely different to her own was fun. The popular culture references were generally amusing too and helped the reader feel how out of place she was in this fantasy world
Sarah Brennan obviously had a very clear picture of her fantasy world and I did love the fact that the characters actually had the power to change the story, and not always for the better. The ideas about the villain being the most interesting character in a story were explored well too.
However, as the story progressed I found it hard to stay engaged with Rae and none of the other characters with the exception of the Golden Cobra and the Northern Princess held any appeal for me at all. Marius in particular annoyed me as we seemed to spend a lot of time with his internal thoughts but never really got to know him better. Most of the characters didn’t feel any more real to me than cardboard cut outs and I can see why Rae kept thinking that they weren’t real. Even though we had multi POVs, I don’t feel that I really understood any of the characters motivations.
There was a plot at the start of the novel but this seemed to get lost in the complications of working out what was actually happening and why. The ending felt quite rushed and some things definitely weren’t clear.
This was a great premise for a fantasy novel and I really enjoyed some aspects of it but in the end It was a slog to get through. Had I not felt committed to finishing it because it was an ARC, I would probably have given up before the half way point. I know that many other readers have loved it though and it does seem to be one of those books that you either love or don’t really get.
Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers, Little Brown Book Group UK, for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This shouldn't be as good as it is. It's a complicated mess but... I kinda loved it. The beginning is tough and I understand why people DNF'd but from 25% in i just got invested.

A story within a story within a story. There were so many plot twists and cliffhangers sprinkled across the book like confetti that I couldn’t have guessed! Such a lovely mish-mash of fantasy and rom-com with a touch of drama.

Tbh I was afraid this morally grey narrative would be a flop but I am absolutely enamoured with it. I’m all for giving minor characters a chance to shine and THIS BOOK IS IT FOR ME! The mix of pop culture references, witty dialogue, and unexpected character developments need a special shout out too.

I tend to try to anticipate and guess the author's next move and Brennan always pulls the rug under my feet when I least expected it, making this book such a fun read for me! You bet I'll be counting down the days to the sequel!

Thank you Little, Brown Book Group UK for this arc via NetGalley.

This was an unfortunate DNF for me. The premise was so very exciting and I do feel that Brennan is a fantastic author, but the finished result simply didn’t work for me. I do believe this book will hit for others, however, and I look forward to more from the author!

There seems to be a bit of a trend this year for ‘protagonist decides they’d rather been the villain in a secondary world where they actually know they’re the villain’, if that makes sense? So far this year I’ve read THE DARK LORD’S DAUGHTER (a fun MG) and HOW TO BECOME THE DARK LORD AND DIE TRYING (an absolute hate-fuelled DNF). LONG LIVE EVIL isn’t perfect, but it’s be far my favourite attempt at the trope so far.

The book is a little hard to get into at first for two reasons.

1 - The characters all have sort of secondary titles e.g. Rae (Lady Rahela aka. The Beauty Dipped in Blood). The characters are referred to interchangeably by names and titles. This made it a little hard to get an immediate grip on the characters and, to be honest, could've been dropped.

2 – You’re very much thrown into the world of the ‘book within the book’ with a lot of characters and world-building, as well as previous plot from that story, while ‘our’ story is unravelling and altering events. This is just the nature of the concept, and I did get a handle on it, but it made the opening chapters a little confusing, and there’s some aspects of world-building I’m not sure I ever really understood (or even had to?)

That aside, LONG LIVE EVIL was such fun! Brennan knows exactly the genre she’s playing about in and managed to thread the needle of having too much of that awkward ‘no-one gets my pop culture references’ and 'out of place/world-view'. Rae comes across as clever and adaptive, but not annoyingly all-knowing or overpowered for the world she finds herself in.

Court politics and intrigues are my favourite type of fantasy, and that’s exactly what we get here, but it a fun, tongue-in-cheek way that plays off some of the suspension of disbelief reader have to have, and the fandoms that can build around popular media. It also tackles a few deeper issues too – class, terminal cancer, goodness vs niceness, and at what point we stop considering other people to be as human/ as complex as ourselves. Brennan also, in under 500 pages, gave me not one but three separate but intertwined romances to root for with my entire soul and, as someone who doesn’t necessarily tend to care as much about the (dare I say, almost always, predictable?) romances in my epic fantasy, that was a real achievement.

I don’t think this book is going to be for everyone but I personally loved it and think it’s one I’d enjoy even more on rereading. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens with the next book. This was my first Sarah Rees Brennan novel, and I’ll be interested in digging into her back catalogue.

Thank you to the publisher and author for the ARC!

Unfortunately this was a DNF for me. It's a really cool concept but I just didn't get the humour and honestly I didn't really like the MC or root for her.

Others have really enjoyed this book so don't let this review put you off!

4 ⭐️
3rd person multiple POV
Villains, Villains, Villains

It was so chaotic in a good way. Nothing turned out the way I thought it would
Rae is dying and she if offered a chance to save herself, by entering a story world, with a chance to fulful a task to save her life. But in the fictional world she discovers she is the evil stepsister, a villain and due to be executed. So she decides she will embrace been the villianary and change the plot so she can survive.

Overall it was such a fun book. Such a different to what I usually read.

Thanks to Orbit and Netgalley for the eARC

I went into this expecting this to be a generic fun little isekai light novel, but it it turned out to be so much more. I had such a good time with it.

I loved the world building and all the complex characters and the ways they were presented. The writing was moving and insightful, but also very humourous, if not batshit crazy at times. Just a great mix of everything I could have possibly wished for from this book.

Storywise there as so much going on, full of unexpected twists and betrayal, I was not bored for a minute and always rooting for all the characters whose POVs were shown. It was so hard to put this down and not just binge read it in a single sitting.

My only warning would be the very abrupt open ending. Once again I was bamboozled into thinking I was reading a standalone. Nope, another series it is. I do enjoy this kind of punch in the face cliffhanger ending for dramatic effect, but I want read on so bad now!

This was the first of Sarah Rees Brennan's books I've read so far, but I will definitely be checking out her others after I had so much fun with this one.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC for reviewing purposes.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I can see how this book would be amazing for somebody who loves more of a campy vibe, but I sadly DNF-ed this book as I just couldn't get into it. The blurb sounded so interesting and like any reader it would be a dream to go into your favorite book, but the style of writing was not my cup of tea. There was so much of modern slang that it just put me off. The worst for me was "The point is, I'm totally evil and I want you to be my evil minions"

The MC went into her favorite book, but she knew almost nothing about the characters of the book and didn't even try to speak/act like she's from their world. It was just a little bit too much going on for me.

This book was one of my most anticipated reads of the year, and it did not disappoint. If you enjoyed Sarah Rees Brennan's YA books, I'm sure you'll enjoy this one, too. And if you haven't read any of her books yet, why not start with this one?

Rae, twenty years old and dying of cancer, is offered an improbable choice and wakes up as a character in her favorite fantasy book series... the only problem: the character she's inhabiting is one of the story's villains. But what do words like "hero" and "villain" even mean when it's not a story anymore, but your life?

The only thing that kept this from being a five star read for me, was that it took me a while to catch on to all the characters and rules of the world-building. And for a significant part of the book, Rae struggles with seeing the people around her as "real people" and not just "characters" - a definite villain trait, as she acknowledges herself! The effect this had on me was that it took me almost as long as it took Rae to start feeling a real connection to them. By the end, I loved all of the characters, especially... no, I can't say who I loved especially because as I was finishing that sentence in my head, I ended up listing all of them! It is a great ensemble cast of "side characters" from the story Rae had read turned into "main characters" in the story she's living.

Rae's situation provides a lot of opportunity for meta commentary on fantasy tropes. The tone of this book is fairly dark, but there is still a lot of wry humor in there. The twist at the end was a surprise, but in retrospect I really feel like I should've seen it coming. When I first heard about this book, I assumed it would be a standalone novel. But now it looks like it's the first in a series, and I can't wait to see what happens next!

I'd recommend this to fans of Leigh Bardugo or Holly Black. And to anyone who has ever wondered what it would really be like to end up actually living inside one of your favorite stories.

Thank you Little, Brown Book Group UK for providing a review copy via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

What a brilliant take I thoroughly enjoyed this book! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book.

Unfortunately I had to DNF this read at about 40%.

I was intrigued from the beginning as I truly went into this book blind. I really loved the unique idea behind this novel, but either it fell short for me or my reading slump has been kicking my a** far too much.

Don’t let this review deter you as I’m sure many people will adore this book!

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘖𝘳𝘣𝘪𝘵 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘈𝘙𝘊.

Genuinely one of the most chaotic books I've ever read. From the pacing to the plot to the characters, it was A LOT. Having said that, I love a bit of chaos from time to time and this had some fascinating and wonderful things to say about the role and characteristics of villains within literature. There's a solid helping of moral greyness and some interesting questions at its heart: if you don't believe the people around you are real, does it matter how you treat them?

I think the author set herself a big challenge with the framing device, and I'm not convinced it always worked. We're thrust into a fictional series (Time of Iron) that exists within Long Live Evil, as popular as something like Lord of the Rings within their present day literary canon. It's a lot to establish the ins and outs of the characters, plot, magic systems and world before our protagonist if thrust into that fictional world as one of its characters. And then plot twists and development rely on her presence as an unreliable narrator because she hasn't read the books properly? It's a lot to wrap one's head around and difficult to keep straight given we're not exactly intimate with the 'source text'. When her actions begin to alter the established plot, it's a challenge to notice those differences, let alone care about them.

Between the Golden Cobra and Key, however, there's a lot of fun to be had in villainous pursuits and the unapologetic nature of certain... sociopathic tendencies. I liked that the heroic archetypes/characters were actually kinda boring. It's a switcheroo in the vein of Once Upon a Time and as a self-confessed CaptainSwan girly, I was here for it. What happens when you give villains agency and permission to BE BAD? Or, occasionally, permission to be good and autonomous in a world that doesn't assume them capable of such things. There's a lot of interesting (and genuinely, twistedly hilarious) writing to sink one's teeth into, but the web of plot and branching consequences became a little too sticky for my liking.

[3.5/5]

Long Live Evil, Sarah Rees Brennan's debut adult novel is a whip smart foray into evil, with a delightful cast of characters along for the ride. But who is really a hero and who a villain when you start to look at actions from the other side? And what lengths would you go to if you were given a second chance at life?
The answer is a satisfying and hilarious romp with Rae as she builds her merry band of villains and upends the narrative to suit her needs, after she's dumped into her favourite fantasy series and given a desperate quest to save herself in the real world.
Don't be fooled by the excellent banter and laugh out loud lines, this novel's smile is filled with knives that will cut you if you aren't careful. Simmering just beneath the surface is a fury that could carve the world in two. Rage at a world filled with injustice - a world that leaves people behind, and that stops telling their stories when the narrative no longer suits the story we tell ourselves. For that's what we're all doing - everything is a story with each of us the hero in our own tale. And it's there that Sarah Rees Brennan excels in holding up a mirror and pushing us to examine the heroes, the villains, and all the shades of grey between the two.
What separates them, where they're indistinguishable, and where all it takes is a different perspective to blur the line between.
I gasped, I cackled, and I cried. This was a love letter to stories and the power they hold, and filled with a bittersweet and furious desire for Rae to make her story a good one.
This book was everything I hoped for and more. A triumph of storytelling, and a very welcome return from one of my favourite authors.