Title: Assistant to the Villain
Author: Hannah Nicole Maehrer
Series: "Assistant to the Villain" #1
Genre: New Adult Fantasy Romance
Page Length: 352 pages
Publication Date: September 5, 2023
Rating: 4 // 5 stars
I'm sure if you've been on BookTok this year that you've seen this book floating around. It's the next big release from Red Tower Books (yes the Fourth Wing guys) and debuted on the NYT bestseller list. And it was one of my most anticipated releases for this year.
I first heard of this book just by following the author with her TikTok skit series about what it would be like as an assistant to a villain. It was such a fun series and everyone loved it. When it was announced it would be published this year, I was beyond excited to see how it finally came to life.
I had so much fun with this book. It gave comedy fairytale vibes as opposed to gritty serious fantasy vibes, and sometimes I just like the silly goofy time. But if you go into this expecting a serious fantasy with deep world-building and a complex plot, you're not going to get that.
I liked our main characters and a lot of the side characters wormed their way into my heart. It was a great mix of personalities and I'm definitely getting found-family vibes from it all. I think the interactions between all the characters are what drive this book the most.
The plot was engaging and fun, though nothing overly special. I like the slow-burn element of it all and I was definitely not expecting the cliffhanger at the end. I didn't realize this was a series when it was first announced but now I'm incredibly intrigued by where this is all going to go in future books.
My only critique of this book is the editing. It felt very much like a first draft with surface level editing. It wasn't a small issue, either. Most of the book's sentence structures, grammar, pacing, etc could have been greatly improved with another couple rounds of editing. I definitely think that if not for the editing, I would have rating this book 5 stars. It's a fun book and the characters are equally fun, but the actual writing and editing needed work.
Overall, I really enjoyed it and am going to continue with the rest of the series. It's a silly, goofy time and I love books that bring that lightness to me. My hope, though, is that the editing will get better in future books with a longer publication schedule as I think the main issue with the book is that. If you can overlook the editing, I think this is definitely a book worth reading.
Thanks for reading!
xoxo
Lauren
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