Long Live Evil

RAE is dying of cancer when a strange woman offers her the chance to enter the world of her favorite book series on a quest that will save her life. She comes to awareness in the story to discover she is in the body of a villainous character on the eve of her execution. From there, she scrambles to save herself in the book narrative, recruit Allie, and complete her quest so she can return to the “real world” before time runs out. 

This book was fun and interesting. I didn't realize it was the first in a series and it could really work as a standalone. Rae is in turns charmong and brittle.  Two characters from within tbe book añso serve as POV characters with their own agendas and ideas about what should happen. Rae often doesn't know what's going to happen because of brain fog and the plot changing from tbe orogonal book. Twists and turns abound. 

I’d like to thank both NetGalley and Hachette Audio, from whom I received an ALC of Long Live Evil.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about it at first but once I gave in and embraced the camp, I had a really good time with Long Live Evil. I love the concept of the book and the idea that entering a story can change its plot. It’s a lot like the idea that if you travel to the past, you can’t change a single thing or the future will veer wildly off track. Rae’s presence in the book and the decisions she made changed the future of every character, and it was a lot of fun to see if those changes were for better or worse.

This is Sarah Rees Brennan’s first adult novel but the writing and especially Rae’s dialogue read to me like YA. I actually struggled to like Rae very much. At first I thought it was because of her childish dialogue and obsession with her new body’s boobs, and while that didn’t help, I think my main issue was that her insistence that none of the characters were real made it hard for me to care about anything, including her. By reminding so many times that no one was real, she was also reminding me that she isn’t real. She was telling me not to care for her either, and I decided to go ahead and listen.

Despite Rae’s best efforts, I found most characters interesting and each had a lot of depth. My favorite character, Key, is one of the first that Rae meets when she wakes up in the world of this story and he’s fascinating. I’m not much for book boyfriends but I might make an exception for Key.

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Moira Quirk. That’s right, Mo from Nickelodeon GUTS narrated this audiobook. God, I’ve always wanted a piece of The Crag. Anyway, sometimes it seemed like she was reading parts of conversations too quickly, faster than the person speaking would actually say them, but for the most part I enjoyed her narration and I think she did the voices of the many characters very well.

Despite the few issues I had, Long Live Evil was ultimately a satisfying read. The ending left me wanting more so I’ll definitely be reading the next book!