Review by angorarabbit - How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying

angorarabbit 's review for:

How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler

2.75

adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

TLDR: Concept intriguing, execution disappointing.

Written in the first person fmc pov with a lot of fourth wall breaking. Lots of USian pop culture references and footnotes. I didn’t mind the footnotes but like other readers I was confused at how a character could remember WoW and Mathias but not who they had loved in a previous world. No one has much of a back story and while many of the characters are at least sympathetic none of them have much depth.The plot is straight forward and easy to follow. The world building is of your general D and D type. Sadly there are no dragons but there are plenty of dungeons. The wildings are kind of fun and could be a good replacement for the dragons.

I almost DNFed it at 70 percent, so I skipped to the second to last chapter and decided to finish it speed reading two chapters. Then on the last few pages there is a book, written in a language that doesn’t exist on this world but the fmc knows because of reasons.That right there took a half star off the book. I imagine Mr Wexler is setting up for a fun reveal in the next book in the series.

I also had trouble believing that a character who had been living 200 plus life times on this world would be so bad at interpersonal relationships with underlings. After all. she had been in leadership positions when she was on the other side of the battle. Beside breaking my suspension of disbelief it also lead to a plot twist you could coming form 20 percent of the way in.

I do like fun cozy fantasy but this one tries too hard to be funny and to much nudge nudge wink wink know what I mean know what I mean.

Content Warnings