😈LONG LIVE EVIL gives fanfic vibes in the best way, and takes both the MC and the reader on an adventure with plenty of laughs, high stakes, and meta-commentary on the fantasy genre😈 

 

Rae's in hospital, weak, and angry about the hand life has dealt her when she's given a chance to live by going into her favourite book series. Rae, sick of being sick, enters the fantasy world where she wakes up as Rahella, calculating seductress and evil stepsister of beautiful MC Lia, who's set to be executed. Rae has to change the story to allow herself, and her new character, the chance to live. Only, while this is her fave series, she's forgotten most of book one. She figures she remembers enough to piece everything together to complete her task and return to the real world healthy and alive, surely with no problems at all…. 

 

Long Live Evil is a fun adventure with an undercurrent of anger with the world. Parts of this are likely drawn from the author's own experience with cancer, and makes it that much more poignant. Rae is angry about being sick, her body failing her, her friends abandoning her, and how she's been deemed not important or worthy due to being ill. This anger also translates to the fantasy world, with even starker notions of the patriarchy and women as only valuable when fitting specific stereotypes. There are many tongue-in-cheek remarks about the fantasy genre, women, villains, and how society treats those who don't fit certain molds. Having previously read and loved In Other Lands, this meta-commentary on genre and real-world issues within the narrative of a fantasy book is something Sarah Rees Brennan does extremely well. It never feels like a lecture or becomes too heavy-handed, it's instead woven into the book seamlessly and with humour. 

 

Another interesting motif centers around humanity, personhood, and agency. Long Live Evil touches upon the notion of reality and what makes someone human and worthy of life in the "real world" and also with Rae initially seeing everyone in the book as characters and expendable, but throughout her journey her views become more complex. 

 

There are A LOT of characters and plot points in this book within a book. Characters with names as well as monikers, and sometimes titles, and it can get confusing to keep track of everyone. It also means that we don't get to fully know everyone because there just isn't enough pages, which is sometimes a bit of a shame because there are some great characters. Which brings me to an important point: 

 

Long Live Evil is book 1 in a series, and it ends on a cliffhanger which I only learned upon finishing the book. I had thought there'd be some resolution, and that this was a standalone, but that isn't the case. Fortunately, this means we'll get to dive deeper into the world and learn more about all the characters, but it was definitely a surprise to me, as I didn't feel like this was made clear from the blurb and marketing 

 

That said, I had a great time with this book and I can't wait for the sequel! 

 

Thanks to Orbit, and Netgalley for the ARC. Long Live Evil is out July 30