Meredith Rae's Reviews > Assistant to the Villain

** spoiler alert ** Good god I don't even know where to start. I would first like to say that as an avid lover of any book with "villain" in the title I have good authority to speak on this and say that Trystan (idk if thats even how you spell his name) was the worst "villain" I've ever read about. When I heard that this book was marketed as a mix between the office and Ella enchanted, I was expecting this villain to be giving Megamind or Gru, but instead for most of the book all I got was just some guy who had a vendetta against the king... like okay and??? The fact that she didn't give us his backstory and the reason he was the notorious villain before page 323, aka 10 pages before the end of the book, was a huge mistake. I fully believe that I would've been more invested in the downfall of the King had I known the reason Trystan was so against him. I also would've liked to see more actual "evil" actions because there was only the mention of torture, some heads hanging from the ceiling, and a scene where he broke a dudes arm, but my guy breaking the arm gave more "feyre fell down a hole and broke her arm :/" and not "rhysand in the court of nightmares breaking a man's arm for calling feyre a whore". essentially, and I hate that I'm saying this, I needed more Rhysand energy in here, and I know what y'all read so I know y'all know what energy I'm talking about. Going back to the "he's just some guy" statement, I wanted him grumpier, there was essentially no grump except when he was hosting a one man pity party for himself because he had feelings :( and like yea dude, you're literally just some guy. where's your persona? literally, because I don't understand where the civilians would've heard about him and called him a villain. give me civilian lore from the eyes of a teenage girl about why he's the villain and maybe then I'll agree that he's a morally grey villain.

Now that I wrote an essay on the villain alone, I will continue on to Evie. I hated her as a character, I'm going to say it. She was just there and she wasn't smart, she wasn't dumb, she just existed. All I knew about her was that her dad was ill, she left school to take care of her family, and she was a personality hire. She was portrayed as this somewhat innocent person who had first believed that The Villain was a bad guy, that she had morals of what was right and what was wrong, but Trystan promising her to not torture anyone and one look at his fucking thighs and she was hanging heads in the entry way for him??? not only was I confused, but where's the angst of fighting with the morality of having to work for the villain to help your family? and I know that y'all are gonna say "but meredith this was a cozy fantasy :/" yea I know, I'm not saying this angst had to go on for a long time but Evie and the Villain joking together after this fight of morality and her finding that understanding of why Trystan was the Villain after all would've hit so much harder. also Evie, girl, why the fuck are you wearing stilettos?? you walk in a forest everyday to go to work and everyone keeps saying how clumsy you are??? wear a chunky heel for gods sakes.

now that I think I'm done ripping apart the main characters, let me get into ripping apart the story. I also hated that. for this part I will use bullet points.

- Why the hell did it jump from the prologue into being five months later? I feel like we missed a few crucial moments of Evie building relationships amongst the other people in the office. Like why the fuck do you not like Rebecka? I get why she doesn't like you, she wants your job, but what did she do to you??

- What the fuck was up with the magic system? it was never explained, I'm literally still confused. there are three things that I have gathered about the system:
1. It may be genetic???
2. There are gods that threw down power???
3. It just randomly awakens one day and only sometimes a magic person can sense it before???
there were no clear answers to any of these and I still don't know how Trystan's magic worked which I think would've been a helpful explanation.

- The romance was not it for me. There was just like nothing there. When I have a romance I like seeing WHY the two people like each other for other reasons than just being pretty, or having a great laugh/the ability to make you laugh. this is where the building of the relationship wouldve been great to see from those five missing months.

- this isn't that serious but the line "I'm. His. Fucking. Assistant." really just pissed me off because you're telling me that you have a last line before you cut some man's throat, the throat of a man who literally assaulted you and tried to BUY you, and the last thing you say to him is that youre an assistant? was that supposed to make me cheer? I just.. maybe it's because I have Aelin in my head telling Maeve that she was a god before she "unleashed herself" but girlie, Evie, you could do better.

- The last thing that really ground my gears was the author on TikTok alluding to there being any semblance of smut in this book in multiple videos and there was genuinely zero. the closest thing to smut was alluding to Trystan having a boner whenever Evie hugged him or something. Like listen, I get that you're trying to attract the TikTok girlie pops, and that the majority read smut or fantasy that has smut in it, but if you know that you're book doesn't have any smut in it, don't try a market to them, it's okay, there are other people who will enjoy this book! It's just not for them! But it weird when you try and gain this audience through deception... it's not like you can allude to this and magically edit the book after its been mass printed.

I would like to end this scathing review off with that I genuinely believe that this book had so much potential in it and the idea for it was fantastic. It needed help with the characters mostly and their relationship. I also believe that had this book been YA I personally would have found it so good. I just think this book was trying to hard to be a TikTok star when not every book written know has to be catered to Booktok.