Long Live Evil charmed me. It explores what happens when we are painted as the villain. Who is the real hero? And how does one become a hero and a villain? Keep reading this book review of Long Live Evil for my full thoughts.
Summary
When her whole life collapsed, Rae still had books. Dying, she seizes a second chance at living: a magical bargain that lets her enter the world of her favourite fantasy series.
She wakes in a castle on the edge of a hellish chasm, in a kingdom on the brink of war. Home to dangerous monsters, scheming courtiers and her favourite fictional character: the Once and Forever Emperor. He’s impossibly alluring, as only fiction can be. And in this fantasy world, she discovers she’s not the heroine, but the villainess in the Emperor’s tale.
So be it. The wicked are better dressed, with better one-liners, even if they’re doomed to bad ends. She assembles the wildly disparate villains of the story under her evil leadership, plotting to change their fate. But as the body count rises and the Emperor’s fury increases, it seems Rae and her allies may not survive to see the final page.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
Long Live Evil is hilarious and heartfelt. It plays with genre conventions and tropes. There’s this societal impulse to humanize the ‘bad hot guy’ and Long Live Evil challenges this. What happens when our villain is a woman? Throughout the book, Brennan examines these conceptions we have about what makes a villain. What would a villain do? And isn’t it all a matter of perspective? For readers, it feels a bit meta as Rae knows all of these characters from the story. But what happens when it goes off script?
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Long Live Evil asks us what happens if we embrace the labels people put on us? If we step into the villain. It also questions who these characters, these side characters and momentary glimpses, would be if they were given the opportunity. All the while, Long Live Evil also explores what happens when we are not the villain in the ways people expect. There’s a steady thrum of action, distinct humor, and literary playfullness.
A piece of Long Live Evil I enjoyed was how it talks about we always see the humanity in villains. The jealousy, the rage, the cruelty. Whereas the heroes are always the model person without flaws. It also asks us what we would do for our survival if push came to shove. Can you tell how much I enjoyed the mind kernels and thoughts in Long Live Evil?
Find Long Live Evil on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, Blackwells, & Libro. fm.