sebrittainclark's review against another edition

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adventurous funny medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

After 1,000 years and 200+ lives, Davi is tired of trying and failing to defeat the Dark Lord on behalf of the Kingdom. She decides it's time for a new strategy. In this life, she's going to become the Dark Lord, since she'll just reset at the beginning again when she dies.

I thought this was a very fun read with a strong narrative voice, but it still created a interesting world that left me full of questions and anxiously anticipating the next book in the series.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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heather1023's review against another edition

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This book has such a promising premise, but I had to DNF at 30% because I just could not do another 200 pages of Davi's irritating POV. 

Several issues here: 

I'm not opposed to cursing and strong language, but *literally* every single page had at least one "fuck" and the random page I decided to share with my husband when I ranted about how frustrating this writing choice was had SEVEN, plus a few other curse words. It was just gratuitous and didn't enhance the story in any way. 

I'm also often on board with an irreverent, snarky FMC who knows how to wield a weapon, but I just never managed to find Davi likable. I frankly couldn't bring myself to care about whether she succeeded or failed at her goal, which is probably the cardinal sin of this book for me. If you're going to have a lot of gore and trauma in your book, at least make it meaningful and make your MC someone I can connect with and care about. 

The other thing that I truly could not get past was that Davi supposedly can't remember where she is from, to the point of saying that *maybe* she's American? Yet she constantly makes very specific pop-culture references and even references Reddit at one point... So what, exactly, is the issue with her memory? She can recall random details about her home world but not anything about her life? Maybe this gets resolved or answered later on, but again, I can't bring myself to care. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit Books for the eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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