Assistant to the Villain (Assistant and the Villain, 1)

WOWOWOWOW

I waffled a lot on the rating I wanted to give this book. While the writing isn't terribly strong, the plot gets reeeally interesting in the final chapters, enough to make me immediately need to pick up the next book in the series. The best part of the book is, by far, the relationships between the characters. The tension between Evie/The Villain is *chefs kiss* and the side characters are humorous without being annoying. I'm desperately hoping the second book cuts down on a lot of the 'lip-quirking, upturned lips, half smile, grinning, lips-pulling' descriptions, because those were so constant that it almost drove me to distraction. I also hope the dialogue tightens up some - The Villain bounces jarringly between overly formal to casual/normal, while Evie says something witty and then immediately ruins it by continuing to word vomit. Even if the writing doesn't get better, I am wildly interested to see how the events of this book shape Evie going forward. There's a lot of potential here!

This had promise, but the writing is as undeveloped as the plot, and I was genuinely convinced it was a YA fanfic for the first several chapters.

Nice easy story with a bit of suspense and mystery. I may be a simpleton judging from others reviews. More like YA book.

Idk what crack she put in this. I don’t /typically/ go for cartoon covered YA books anymore BUT this checked all my boxes. Maybe it was just what I needed at the time, as a mood reader, but it was a fun, never dry, slow burn, with a pretty good plot twist; it also made me cackle from start to finish. It was even a bit campy, in the over theatrical way. I fully intend on rereading.