A review by wondereads13
The Villain Edit by Laurie Devore

4.0

 I was just looking for an audiobook for a long drive, and I happened upon this one, whose author I saw at Yallfest. This is a Bachelor-inspired novel about a struggling author who joins the competition to boost her book sales, only to be hated by the entire audience. One thing I really loved about this book was that the main character, Jac, is clearly not a great person. She's selfish, she's money-motivated, and she definitely falls prey to internalized misogyny a few times. This isn't about some poor, misunderstood, exploited saint, it's about a woman who isn't the most likable person being villainized to the extreme. Jac is complex, which is part of why I really enjoyed her, and her working out her issues kept me far more engaged in this book than the romance. Just like Jac's own books, I would say this is less a romance and more a contemporary novel, as what's really important is Jac, not her love life. There were some things I didn't like about this novel—Jac isn't the first person to think this way, and she makes some pretty horrendous decisions—but overall I quite liked this book, even as someone who doesn't typically read contemporary.