A review by abicaro17
Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This is a hard book to rate. I really enjoy the concept and a lot of the plot points. An grumpy evil villain with a sunshine down on her luck assistant? Amazing! I think the issue is execution. The book is incredibly slow and any story advancement is basically in the last 50ish pages. The characters are also relatively flat and boring. Like Evie got a blip of development past the box she was shoved in during the last 5 pages. Becky and Blake are the worst examples of this because they're exclusively office suck up and the goofy guy. I tried to give this book grace because its part of a series but a lot of content could have been added to create context for a lot of things we're just like asked to believe. Like the Villian being a village terror (
he basically only beheads people who work for him, people trying to kill him, or anyone who disrespects people he cares about
), King Benedict being a "hero" in literally anyones eye??, or the lack of world building (where are they, how far away is the palace, is it like a fairytale kingdom or am I supposed to be imagined King's Landing from GOT?) This just needed more world building content, more contextual characterization, and a story restructuring for me.
Also when the Villian is like I love Evie! I literally closed my book and rolled my eyes. WDYM? This is a slow burn bro you aren't supposed to know that yet.
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