Reviews with content warning for Child abuse - Assistant to the Villain

Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

8 reviews

dalek_caan's review

adventurous dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

This book has a really drab start, and the characters begin exceedingly bland which makes the book hard to get into. Getting past the first half, however, the book picks up a bit in the second half, though in my opinion the drawnout buildup to the conclusion was mildly unnecessary and could have been filled with more useful content. As the reader gets to know the characters a bit more, there is some clever banter that's rather enjoyable. It's definitely a fun albeit somewhat gorey MG/YA novel that pokes fun at a lot of fantasy genre tropes while simultaneously falling into them.

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rehtaehwashere's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

What I liked: The story concept, the addition of magical creatures (really wasn't expecting that at all), family dynamics, a realistic feeling sibling relationship (even if it was minimal). The slow burn romance and will-they-won't-they, and the thirsting wasn't excessive at all
What I disliked: the twist where
the villain isn't actually the villain (that's what SOLD me on the book)
, that the character was an obvious author insert plus the cringey quirkiness (typical romance-fantasy style) and inserting outfits randomly everywhere. Plus the
<'dating her boss' /spoiler> trope was kinda eh
Overall thoughts: really cool story and I love the concept! Much better writing than fourth wing even if the characters are still the author-insert quirky girl thing which was less bothersome here because the story was interesting and was advertised PURELY as a romance so it is almost expected. Crabby male characters will always win me over because it's funny. The
fake-trustworthiness of the 'good' people being pretty convincing
was good too.
Recommend to a friend? Y

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brewingespresso's review

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emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Solid 4-star read for me! This is such an easy, “I don’t need my brain fully on” book and I LOVED it! It’s so cute, there are so many great Grumpy x Sunshine moments, the burn is slower but the story is adorable. I loved Evie and all her little side notes to herself and I loved the Villain and all his anger issues.

Also I have to be so so fr, you just know he’s hung

Kingsley was a phenomenal character I just wish we’d gotten more of him.

FUCK GRIFFIN SAGE ALL MY HOMIES HATE GRIFFIN SAGE

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wickedgrumpy's review

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adventurous dark mysterious sad slow-paced

2.5

It had promise but ended up lacking. The pacing felt awkward, the pining was uninspired, the world building was confusing.. I could go on, but it wasn't a bad book. Doubt I will continue the series.

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ajhling's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

(Please note it took me from October to December to finish it, not because I wasn't interested but because I'm Autistic and other things (video games, cooking, trying to learn another language, and a handful of movies, books and TV shows) caught my attention (yay for hyperfixation)).

This book is a fun read. It's obvious that the author doesn't have much experience in writing, and that - at least in the Google Books edition I had - there was some minor formatting and spelling issues.

But despite the clear inexperience of the author, I found myself enjoying the book. The cast of characters weren't 'diverse' in the real-world sense. But to be fair, its a fantasy world with fantasy nations and cultures, and we only know there are other cultures in this world because they were occasionally mentioned very briefly.

That being said, the characters that were depicted weren't of the same physical appearance (not all white, or supermodel 'pretty'), and at least two side characters were revealed to be not-straight (so for those of you that care about that sort of thing you'll find a little bit of representation).

However, there were definitely character tropes happening. The Villain (the love interest for the fenale protagonist) being described as really attractive and physically strong. The female protagonist having black hair and light-blue eyes (which apparently is seen as a cliche these days that doesn't bother me but apparently bothers orhers).

Random bitchy female character who would be the high school girl who thinks she's better than everyone because 'reasons' in a YA novel, but in this one she is a co-worker who thinks she's better than everyone because 'reasons.' A dumb geeky-jock-like character clearly crushing on the bitchy co-worker but probably doesn't stand a chance.

But even with the cliches and the plot being a little 'holey' (which is unsurprising because this whole idea for the story literally started thanks to a TikTok serie and was originally created for fun and enjoyment) the story was still good.

Would I say it was great or revolutionary? Nope. But it was still a great light-hearted read for when you don't want to read something too heavy or with to many 'moving parts' or complex lore.

Was the world and character building a little on the weaker side of things? Yes. But don't worry, there was character development for not just the maim characters but fir secondary characters as well (and most of the character development happened in the last five-odd chapters). Despite this the characters were interesting enough that I cared about what happened to them.

Will I be reading the sequel? Yes, because I genuinely want to know what happens next.

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