Synopsis:
SHE TRIED TO FIX HIM. SHE MADE HIM WORSE.
Rae is a fantasy reader who’s been transported to her favourite fictional world of swords and sorcery, castles and monsters. Playing the villainess, she thought she could change the narrative, but this version of the plot is far more deadly than the one she knew.
Her friends are on the run: the Cobra shelters in an eerie manor haunted by dark secrets, while Emer and Lia stoke a revolution in the gutters. Undead armies roam the kingdom, raiders camp at the city gates, and the all-powerful Emperor – Rae’s favourite character ever, now possibly the greatest monster in the land – wants her to be his evil queen.
Romantic in fiction, complicated in reality. What’s a villainess to do? Time for wicked bargains and fake engagements, in a fantasy where the most dangerous thing you can do is believe in someone.
Review:
All Hail Hellish cliffhangers.
Oh wait, that’s not right….
This book lives up to its titles this is pure chaos of meta commentary on fiction, tropes, and readers.
Imagine being transported into your favourite unfinished book series in the role of a villain. A harlot.
Imagine deciding ‘F it’ and going all-out evil and going for the bad boy.
“Book boyfriends: you get older, they stay the same age. It gets awkward.”
Some readers argued he was morally grey. If you asked Alice, some readers defined “morally grey” as “a remorseless murderer who is good-looking”.
The sequel definitely felt like a sequel. It was very filler and went around in circles. It almost felt like only the last 10% really mattered. I had thought this would be a duology and I think it might have worked better as one.
Saying that, I enjoyed how on the nose it was about reader behaviour and conventions. It takes cliches and tropes and uses it to Rae’s advantage.
Even if people said they wanted the same story again, they meant they wanted to feel the same feelings they felt when reading the first story for the first time. You never felt the same shock of joy, love or sorrow from having the warmed-up leftovers of the first story served as a new meal.
I also felt deeply touched by the conversation about Rachel’s illness prior to being transported. How aware she was that people were sympathetic at first, until the amount of help she needed became inconvenient. Until people wanted her to get over it or stop being dramatic or to care about what seems minor in comparison to her struggles.
To stop being selfish as if she had a choice.
As you can tell, that hit me hard.
If the plot of the book from the start of this review sounds familiar, maybe you’re reminded of the newly published This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews which published this year. Very different in terms of tone, but both rely on info and lore dropping. This can be frustrating, but here we get epigraphs at the start of each chapter which does some of the background heavy lifting.
Overall, most of this book felt unnecessary and I really didn’t vibe with the romance. So, I guess it failed as a romantasy? However, I will always be a sucker for books that knock on the fourth wall.
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