The Book Nook Chronicles

This year, I am participating in an A to Z Challenge Book Club! We’ll be reading a book starting with each letter of the alphabet which is a fun goal to tackle with friends. As a group of six, we divided the alphabet as equally as possible and then selected titles from there. I’ll be doing quite a few book reviews outside of my comfort zone due to this and hope you are all excited to take on this adventure with me! Assistant to the Villain is book A!

Why, oh, why does TikTok do this to me? There are too many books that have become instant bestsellers before they’ve actually been published because of successful BookTok marketing and I’m sick of it. Just because someone figures out a viral tagline does not mean they’ve written a good book. Assistant to the Villain is yet another example of how this is very, very true.

There isn’t much to report about this book outside of the fact that it’s a bit like dry toast–lacking in originality or flavor. The overly quirky and awkward main character, Evie kicks off the book by wondering into a forest, which instantly made me feel like I was diving into a smutty Tangled/ Ella Enchanted (the movie, NOT the novel). This is where she meets her love interest, The Villain and some overtly aggressive and unnatural flirting ensues. Evie some how ends up with a job offer by the end of the first (or second chapter) and our story begins.

The fact that our main setting is an evil corporate fortress in the middle of a modern fantasy world made me instantly imagine Elon Musk as the Villain. That completely took away any ounce of sex appeal that could of existed for him. Much like Musk, The Villain is an enigma of a man. In the first few chapters, he is pulling out all of the serial killer stops on his victims, and yet, about half way through he’s a complete softy falling in love with his assistant. The two extremes just didn’t mesh.

There’s little to no brain power needed to get through this book, which isn’t always a bad thing. I do like my fair share of beach reads, but I like a beach read that keeps me interested. This book just made me bored. I found every plot predictable and instantly know who the true villain of the story was. I’ll keep that secret to myself for anyone that actually wants to pick up this book (spoiler alert, it’s not The Villain). The last 50 pages got kind of interesting, simply to end on a very steep cliffhanger that did not leave me wanting more.

I ended up having to purchase this book which made me pretty sad. I would have much rather put the dollars towards a book with more substance. If you’re here for some under-developed fan fiction filled with Disney Princess wannabes and confusing men, this is the book for you. I hope for the sake of people that have to finish a series once they’ve started it that the sequel is better. I, thankfully, am not one of those people and will leave it to everyone else to find out.

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Erica’s Experience

Title: Assistant to the Villain

Author: Hannah Nicole Maehrer

Genre: Romanatasy

Page Count: 340

Publication Date: August 29, 2023