Assistant to the Villain

December 22, 2023 9:32 PM

ASSISTANT WANTED: Notorious, high-ranking villain seeks loyal, levelheaded assistant for unspecified office duties, supporting staff for random mayhem and terror, and other Dark Things In General. Discretion a must. Excellent benefits.

With ailing family to support, Evie Sage's employment status isn't just important, it's vital. So when a mishap with Rennedawn's most infamous Villain results in a job offer—naturally, she says yes. No job is perfect, of course, but even less so when you develop a teeny crush on your terrifying, temperamental, and undeniably hot boss. Don't find evil so attractive, Evie.

Based on the viral "Assistant to the Villain" TikTok series.

posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit (4 comments total)

I had to double check that this isn’t Hench. Because as described, it’s awfully familiar. Did you like it?
posted by MonkeyToes at 10:53 PM on December 22, 2023 [5 favorites]

I started reading this and the first few chapters were okay… but the quality rapidly dropped off, and I didn’t finish it. I’ve noticed that a lot of modern books have this problem, where they’ve obviously workshopped the heck out of the first part of the book, and the rest of it isn’t as good.
posted by The River Ivel at 4:49 AM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

Thank you, The River Ivel, I thought I was the only one to notice that (Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, How High We Go in the Dark, and I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness are three that come to mind).

I'm poking around in the Goodreads reviews and am seeing that this reads like it was written for middle-grade readers. And, uh: "This reads like Howl’s Moving Castle fanfiction in the style of a Korean romantic comedy series if that series was 300 episodes long with 265 of those being filler episodes about making coffee."
posted by MonkeyToes at 11:18 AM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

I enjoyed it, but it is VERY committed to the bit of "evil bad guy with a heart of gold who is somehow a hero despite all the murdering and death magic suffers in silence because he is secretly in love with his bubbly, ray-of-sunshine assistant" without really unpacking how that would work.

There's worldbuilding, but it's pretty sparse. They get together for Reasons. There is a bad guy worse than our titular bad guy. Stuff happened in the past, but we never really get answers for all of it.

We do get a lot about the office abandoned castle in which they work, though. And the character interactions are great, I remember laughing at them a lot. There is a sequel coming later next year, perhaps it will do some more of the narrative lifting that this one didn't?
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 7:01 PM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]