Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the e-arc.
I had been anticipating the release of this book for so long and i was overjoyed when i received the arc only to then be so disappointed. The writing was flat, the characters made me feel nothing, I couldn’t get invested in any of them and this is sad for a book that promises villains and knights and spymasters. And it didn’t feel adult at all to me.

Unfortunately I really struggled with finishing this book.
The premise was really good, I love the idea of falling for the villain (always have)! I think there was too much info dumping at the start which made it hard to connect with the characters and I was overall a bit confused.

The writing style was brilliant though.

WAIT.. wait a minute.. SARAH!!!!! the way this ending gagged me. i was prepared to come on here and say blah blah marius valerius is pookie, my kingdom for self loathing and homosexuality and swearing fealty to one person at all costs (the gideon/harrow of it all), but suddenly the ending has me fully invested in the main plotline. SLAY!!!! tickled by the multiple vampire chronicles references i sniffed out as well (anybody else up wearing sorrow like jewels?). as always i love you sarah rees brennan and if you have one fan it is me. the jared lynburn/nick reeves tortured archetype will never not hit for me!!!!

Unfortunately for me, the writing style of this just didn't work. There's a lot of exposition at the beginning, trying to set up all these political players as Rae is transported into a fantasy world. Add in the pop culture references and the obvious satire/play on the genre and I just found I couldn't get into the overall story.

I definitely think this is more of a personal taste issues. I'm just not keen on the blend of modern day and fantasy. I want full immersion. And Rae overall isn't a bad character. Right from the start she's had to face issues no-one should have to deal with, and she's even accepted that her life is essentially over before she's given this second chance. But her romance was pretty average, and when added to my other issues I unfortunately didn't really have an enjoyable reading experience.

DNF'd at ~50%

As much as the concept of this book really appealed to me, I found the execution rather lacking. I've picked it up trying to finish it so many times now, but I can never get more than a couple of chapters further on.

Rae, as a character in her own world, is...not uninteresting, though you don't see much of it. In the fantasy world she's ended up in, she is jarring. Every single time I even came close to maybe connecting to another characters, the narration breaks in with a reminder that actually, they're not real and therefore not worth caring about. It is impossible to suspend your disbelief and actually enjoy the progression of the story because you are constantly being reminded that Rae is the only character who means anything at all and everyone else is just fodder for the plot. Because she doesn't care about anyone, you can't either, and if you somehow manage to put this out of your mind for long enough to lose yourself in the story you can barely go two pages without it cropping up again. At no point did it feel like I was reading a coherent story. Sarah Rees Brennan did very much establish that Rae is Not Of This World, but Rae interacts with her new world with absolutely no buy-in to the mechanics that govern it except for the absolute bare minimum, which she does largely with disdain.

Having not been able to finish the book, I can't say whether Rae ends up changing her perspective later. But given that I got halfway through with absolutely no sign of character growth - Rae just walks into preordained situations that she already knows about and walks out with exactly the same attitude as before - I can't see how it can be turned around in the latter half. There are a couple of surprises, but they just seem to bounce off her. She cares about only one thing (getting out of the world she's ended up in) and that is where the entirety of her attention is focused. If it doesn't feed back into her goals, it is not worth her time, which means that the book is quite lacking in anything resembling downtime or emotional development. There is no ebb and flow of tension. It's all go, all the time, and the few and far between quiet moments are interrupted by the reminder that none of this is real.

All in all, I just found that this book dragged. I gave it as many shots as I was willing to, and it never ended up hooking me, or even mildly intriguing me. I think it just wasn't for me.

A young woman battling illness is given a chance to walk into her favorite book, play a villain and save her life in the process.
The premise of this story had everything I usually look for in a book. It sounded adventurous and high stakes while also not always taking itself seriously. Unfortunately, the book falls a bit short of fulfilling its own promise for me.

The main character, Rae, enters the story on a quest to find a magical flower that would save her and send her back to her real life. In doing so, she allies with people, plots and schemes (like a villain) to make the events of the book as she remembers them happen and find her way back home.

The interesting set up sadly does not hold up as the story progresses. The pacing is probably the biggest reason why. A lot of the first part of the book is spent going back and forth between characters with very little to no plot progression or world exploration. I was very close to dnfing from the 20% mark on and only kept reading out of curiosity for the denouement. The story does become more engaging in the last third of the book, making me wish the lead up to the ending was as well.

Another aspect that didn’t quite work for me is the tone of the book. This book is marketed as adult fantasy and I feel like it reads more as YA for most of it. The comedic aspects can also sometimes feel almost like a caricature which also doesn’t fit the adult fantasy promise.

Highlight of the book for me are the secondary characters like Key, the Cobra, and Marius who add a lot of depth to the world. The dynamic between the Cobra and Marius in particular was probably the most interesting aspect for me. They go through quite the journey together and end up in a very interesting place by the end of the book.

An intriguing premise, interesting characters, but the book does fall short on delivering on its promise.

"Isekai" is a trope that has gained popularity primarily in Japanese culture, featuring stories about characters transported to alternative worlds. In recent years, this theme has increasingly appeared in Western works. One such example is the book Long Live Evil, which, despite having the potential to explore this theme in an intriguing way, ultimately turned out to be disappointing.

The plot of Long Live Evil revolves around Rae, a girl dying of cancer who is given a chance to survive by entering her favorite fantasy series. The protagonist, taking on the role of the story’s main villain, must find a magical flower to complete her quest and save her life. Despite the interesting premise, the story quickly loses momentum as the fantasy world Rae enters is exceptionally generic and lacks depth. And in the case of isekai this is unforgivable. The author tries to give it uniqueness by introducing some vague magical items that can be used only by aristocracy, but this aspect remains underdeveloped, rendering the fantasy world nothing more than a bland backdrop.

Another issue is the uneven pacing and the excessive number of points of view. Instead of developing Rae's character, who should be the reader's avatar in this new world, the author focuses on POVs from side characters, such as the Golden Serpent and Marius, who dominate the narrative, pushing Rhae into the background. As a result, Rae, who should be the central focus of the story, becomes just one of many characters, preventing the reader from fully engaging with her journey. Additionally, the comedic elements based on contemporary slang and the inclusion of musical scenes give the book a parodic tone that doesn’t align with the epic fantasy promised in the promotional materials. Also, despite villainy being the main theme, once again we receive characters who only pretend to be evil while not doing a single evil thing throughout the whole book. In fantasy, we already had the era of „assassins who actually don't kill” and now it seems that we're entering the times of „villains who are actually good at heart”.

In summary, Long Live Evil is a book that had the chance to create an intriguing isekai story, but ultimately fails on many fronts. Although the author's style is accessible and easy to understand, the lack of a clear goal and the superficial approach to the theme leave the story feeling unsatisfying. Unfortunately, for me Long Live Evil was too simplistic and disappointing.

Long Live Evil is quite possibly my favourite new book. I have never been more seen than when I was reading it.

At its core, it's an isekai story: Rae went to bed as a cancer patient in her last stage of illness, and woke up as a healthy, vivacious villainess of a fantasy series her younger sister loves, Beauty Dipped In Blood.

Long Live Evil is for the manhwa-reading girlies who know the Otome Isekai tropes like the back of their hand and enjoy a good shake up to the original story's plot.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-ARC copy of this book, in exchange for this honest review.

When i read the synopsis of this book, i was immediately drawn to the concept of it. It reminded me of the time where i, also, wrote a short story for a college writing competition where you got to travel into your favourite story. If you know me, you know i love morally grey characters or villains so to read a book based on the actions of one was something fresh and exciting. I enjoyed the storyline and the pacing was good. I'm glad that i wasn't expecting it to end like that. When i read it i was like "oh. Wait a minute," i went back and read it again to make sure i was understanding it correctly and just went "ohhhhh" again when i came to the realisation 😂. The only reason why i didn't give it 5 stars is because i was struggling to picture scenes at times as not much description was given but other than that, i do think it is a nice read.

Thank you netgalley and little brown book group for letting me read this for an honest opinion.

After seeing all the positive reviews for this book I went in hoping for the best but came out very disappointed. I really tried to stick it out but I ended up DNFing at 49% and only got that far because I really liked Key,

I love the concept of someone becoming a character in a book but I felt this read more of a upper YA book than an adult book. I found the FMC to be a little annoying and constantly going on about how much of a villain she was got a bit boring,
The only thing that would have kept me reading was Key, He was a great character and I found myself looking forward to the interactions with him in but it wasn't enough to get me to finish the book unfortunately.

This was my most anticipated read of the year and it did not disappoint! I finally understand sports fans, this was my Super Bowl; I yelled, I cried, I was in a perpetual state of bargaining with the book and every time I had to put this book down was an affront to me - I could not wait to get back to it, Thank you Sarah Rees Brennan for writing this book, I adored this book and I cannot wait for the next one. If I could spend my life in one book, it would be this one, what I wouldn't give to be one of the vipers!

For anyone who’s ever dreamed of falling into their favourite book but as the villain.

This had me evil cackling and kicking my feet giggling. Honestly this book was just a joy to read and so much fun even if heartbreaking in places. The portrayal of Rae as she progress from bedridden with cancer through the book and slowly starts to see the characters as people had me gripped.

I would love more of the Cobra and his backstory.

we always love a good main character but what if they are evil and they saty evil.

this book was amazing.
i loved the taking of the villains. and i am down for more.

Have you ever wished you could get lost in the pages of your favourite book? Do you think the story would change with you in it?

This was an intriguing concept which took a little while to get going, but once it did it was very enjoyable.
I loved how Rae realised how much we don’t see about a world when we read a book. VE Schwab uses a metaphor about how a world is a house and when we read a book we can only see in through the windows, and I think Long Live Evil demonstrated that perfectly. So much that Tae assumed about her favourite book and certain characters wasn’t quite what she thought it would be.
Plus the perspective of a.) a villainous character and b.) a villainous character who has a real world understanding of how villains work in stories made for a fun dynamic.

Overall, I really liked Long Live Evil and would read more in this series (if it is one).

This is for every fantasy lover that has ever fallen for the villain. It's unlike anything I have ever read. Long Live Evil is a masterpiece, I have never smiled and giggled to myself so much when reading before, it certainly has the fun factor.

Long Live Evil has been one of my most anticipated reads for months and to say it's finally here it so surreal. Sarah has done an excellent job crafting a world where Rae falls into a fantasy book and becomes the villain of the story. Her characters are well fleshed out, their actions and attitudes to situations are very relatable.

As a big Manhwa fan, I have read similar light novels but to see this storyline within a fantasy book was epic. I devoured this book and I can't wait to see where this series goes.

4 of 5 stars
https://lynns-books.com/2024/08/20/review-long-live-evil-time-of-iron-1by-sarah-rees-brennan/
My Five Word TL:DR Review: Slow Start But Have Patience

I will admit that I had a brief moment when I first started reading Long Live Evil where I considered setting it to one side to pick up at a later time (and lets just face it I’m not kidding anyone when I say that because everyone knows that book will then be doomed). Fortunately I pressed on and I’m so glad that I did because I ended up really enjoying this and loving the characters. And, quite unexpectedly, because I seemed to have convinced myself that this was a standalone novel, it seems that there is more to come. Which is a relief because otherwise that ending would be very puzzling indeed.

So, basically, as the story begins we meet Rae, in hospital with cancer. Her sister spends a lot of time at her bedside reading stories and in particular the one fantasy series that they both love for very different reasons. Not to beat about the bush Rae is seriously ill, she is visited one day by a mysterious woman who, in a nutshell, lays things on the line. She’s not going to survive and her family will be destitute after paying for all the treatment. Said mystery woman offers Rae a chance at survival. She can enter the world contained in her favourite fantasy series, as one of the characters and use her time there to retrieve a magic flower, if she retrieves the Flower of Life she will return to her own world and recover. If not, well, she won’t be returning. Of course Rae takes the deal, when you have one choice at survival what you going to do, but, on waking in the country of Eyam, and discovering she is in the body of Lady Rahela, she soon deduces she may have been duped. Lady Rahela is about to be executed the very next day for treason and, being all too familiar with the storyline Rae knows exactly the torturous death she’s about to face. She needs to come up with a plan.

I won’t give away any spoilers but instead discuss general thoughts and feelings.

I feel I should mention that it did take me some time to get into this one. I’d say a good 30%. Possibly because there’s quite a lot to take on board in the early stages and also because it took me a little while to really get a handle on what was going on and where the story was actually going. Rae’s knowledge of the world, particularly from the first book in the series is sketchy and so I felt like I was stumbling around a little at first in much the same way that she was – although she had a much better handle on the key characters and all their ridiculous nicknames. In the early stages I wondered if this was going to be similar to the Princess Bride but I was soon disabused of that notion as this isn’t about somebody telling a tale to a sick person but instead it’s the sick person actually taking part in the tale themselves. That being said, much like the Princess Bride, it does poke fun, and has a good time doing so, at the tropes of fantasy which is something I really enjoyed.

The characters. I really did like so many of the characters. I’m not sure you’re supposed to like a murdering, sociopathic bodyguard but I did. I couldn’t help it. He was a two faced duplicitious so and so for the most part who wouldn’t hesitate to slit your throat and steal the dress off your back – his name is Key. We also have Emer, Lady Rahela’s maid. She’s not best pleased with her lady, as we soon find out, and with good reason, but she plays such a good role and soon finds out she’s a dab hand at wielding an axe. The Golden Cobra is probably my favourite character, a charmed man, he runs the local brothel and has a laid back attitude and a way with words, he’s blackmailing one of the heroes of the piece in order to gain access to the castle and the nobility. Okay, I’m not going to list all the characters, they all seem to have fallen straight out of a Diane Wynne Jones Tough Guide to Fantasy. They all have a role to play and their characters are almost carved from stone. Rahela for example, she’s the evil woman who connived to win the crown and the King by seeing her step sister put to death. She’s also branded a seductress and the funny thing is, whether she’s angry or sad, happy or indifferent her curves are always resplendent, she walks with a sultry sway and her voice is set at a level to seduce – she’s the evil seductress, this is her character, but of course, she’s also Rae.

Now, what Rae soon discovers, much like a time traveller who has jumped back to tinker with events thereby changing the future, the plot of this story has similarly become an unknown beast. In escaping her own execution Rahela has turned the course of the story and she’s now set on a desperate mission to put it back on track. At first she doesn’t feel any remorse, these are not real people after all, they’re characters in a book, but Rae is also now living in these pages and her actions have very real repercussions.

I really enjoyed the writing style. Rae, being a 21st century girl, quite often acts or says things that are way too modern to belong in a mediaeval setting but I really liked these moments, because she is, after all not from that period and it leads to a few comedic repercussions. I wouldn’t necessarily say this is a laugh out loud sort of story, it made me frequently smile or raise my eyebrows at the shenanigans taking place and I did enjoy a lot of the dialogue, particularly when it involved, Rae, Key or the Cobra.

In conclusion, I was surprised to find that this wasn’t a standalone (I don’t know why I thought it was to be honest), and happily surprised because I’m more than intrigued and keen to see where this story goes next. I’m not at this point sure this is the story I thought I was going to get but I enjoyed it perhaps even more for the unusual route it took me down. And, in spite of the snarky brevity and sometimes light feel to the story it raises some heavy topics. Rae, after all, is very sick, she’s also lonely and angry and so the opportunity to be the ‘bad girl’ really appealed to her but even with the freedom that falling from grace can bring she is actually still a good person who really wants to get home (and not kill everyone else in the process of doing so). Perhaps there’ll be some ruby slippers in book 2.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publishers, for which my thanks. The above is my own opiniion.

This is exactly what it says it will be and for that I loved it. I wanted something fresh and new and exciting and this really delivered.
It was at times predictable but I feel this didn't detract from the story and I loved the humour in it even if not necessarily to everyone's tastes.
The characters were fun to love and hate as required and got more nuanced as you continued reading which was nice.
I did feel that coming to the end I'd wished it had just continued and that there was more to read.
That being said it did wrap up in a good spot that leads perfectly on to a sequel I will definitely be reading.
Overall a great fantasy comedy that I wholeheartedly reccommended.
Favourite Quote - "Let's see how much treason I can commit in twelve seconds."
Favourite Character - Key

Wow well what a rollercoaster this was.
A portal to a fantasy world is probably my favourite trope…so a book about a woman finding herself in her favourite book? I’m sold!

It did actually end up taking me quite a while to get into it. At first I was like, ‘what is going on?’, ‘who is this again?’ and ‘I don’t get it’. Then about 25% I suddenly realised I was utterly invested and couldn’t stop thinking about it!!

There’s a lot of characters to get your head around and then also the ‘original’ story line, but it just gradually all clicked into place and was so satisfying when it did.

It’s got so much to enjoy - intriguing characters, meddling chaos, court politics, scheming, humour, sword fighting, a touch of romance, medieval vibes and even zombies.
I also enjoyed that woven into the plot was some commentary on the nature of fiction, the romantasy genre and readers’ relationships with books.

It’s also very apparent that the character Rae’s experiences with cancer are influenced by the authors own personal experience. The descriptions of how it feels to be so ill, and how people can fall away when things get tough, were incredibly visceral. Loved the concept of Rae being able to reclaim her power and just be an absolute badass in a fantasy world. Feel like this will speak to so many ill and disabled people who use stories to escape.

Where it ended was pretty satisfying, but I neeeed more! I feel attached to these characters now! So funny when a theme of the book is about being attached to fictional characters and rooting for favourites 🤣😂

A book that just gradually reeled me in and now I’m gutted I’ve finished!

(I did end up reading the finished hardback version, but thank you to Netgalley for the advanced digital copy).

I was so close to DNF-ing this book after only a few chapters but with the glowing reviews I'd read, I soldiered on and I'm glad I stuck with it as I did find the last 30-40% of the story gripping. There were some great reveals towards the end!

The 3 stars are pretty much all coming from the last half of the story, not necessarily the book as a whole.

I enjoyed the premise of Long Live Evil, and loved the prospect of a fantasy book built off of sarcastic humour and a love of villains, but I just felt the execution was off.

I found the main character cringey and unlikeable. I much preferred other characters to the FMC. Stand-outs were Key and Cobra - both fantastic and dynamic additions to the story.

The writing is jarring and difficult to read in places. I found myself having to reread passages to work out what was going on. There's a lot of poetic writing, but it was just too much. Every other sentence felt like it was a metaphor or simile. I also didn't think there's enough dialogue, and dialogue that is included feels very forced and doesn't read like a natural conversation. There's a lot of 'thinking' included between comments so you easily lose track of what's being said.

I also found that there was a lot of flicking between past and present within chapters, but no real indication that you were doing so, so it threw the pacing off quite a bit.

I will read the sequel when it comes out, purely because I enjoyed how this ended, but I really hope that any follow-ups are toned down a bit with regards to the writing.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me a copy to read as an ARC.

This book is such a fun wild ride, and continues the trend of my constantly having a good time with Sarah Rees Brennan's books. The book starts when Rae, a young woman who is suffering from cancer, is given an opportunity to save herself through entering the world of the fantasy book her and her sister both love (in part influenced by SRBs experience with late stage cancer and I recommend looking up some of the interviews and posts she's made about the process of writing this book which marks her first novel length original work published since her illness as well as her adult debut).

This book is quite meta and campy in places, so if you don't enjoy humour in your fantasy settings then it's possible you wouldn't gel with this as well as I did. But it's also a book with a lot of heart, and has a lot of deeper conversations going on, in particular themes of if it's worth destroying others to get back to your family, and if whether or not those that you see as other are worth the same which can form a really interesting narrative on some of what we see going on today in our world.

Through Rae's eyes and conversations with other characters in a world that she has read about and which she believes to be fully fictional, there's a lot of delving into what makes a person a person and can you ever say that death and trauma happening to others doesn't matter if you don't view the individual involved as being 'real', which in Rae's case is because she considers these characters as embodied works of fiction, but had me thinking about how we can so easily dismiss the trauma of others in our minds when it's happening a world away.

But if you just want straight up escapism and fun it's also very easy to just read this book as such, with many fun meta references and witty one liners and villains revelling in glorious villainry with a spectacular musical number to boot. But the layers are also there to be explored if you want for a dash of seriousness to add to the fun.

Heartily recommend to anyone to try unless if you really hate anything that merges humour into the fantasy, and if you enjoy this one I recommend trying Sarah's other portal fantasy 'In Other Lands'.