Assistant to the Villain: No.1 New York Times bestseller from a TikTok sensation! The most hilarious grumpy sunshine romantasy book of 2023

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Well, Assistant to the Villain, the book, has a lot of points in its favor. It's a great example of the Grumpy/Sunshine romance trope done right, in that neither half is overdone or cheesy (except when they're supposed to be for comedic effect, and yes, it lands). Evie and The Villain both won my empathy, which I was not expecting especially from The Villain. Plus, I loved that although these two have romantic chemistry, I bought that they could be friends first, and enjoyed seeing them interact as both friends and employer/employee. Maehrer’s viral TikTok series turned novel follows Evie Sage as she finds unusual employment working for the kingdom’s most notorious criminal. With an ailing father and young sister to support, Evie’s job prospects are severely limited. So when she quite literally stumbles into the Villain and he offers her a position as his assistant, it feels a lot like fate. Sure, she’s not exactly thrilled by the severed heads suspended from the ceiling or the tortured screams echoing through her workplace, but she’s more than a little smitten with her boss. Because not only is the Villain surprisingly young and attractive, but he also seems to have developed an inopportune soft spot for his loyal, level-headed new assistant.

I was pleasantly surprised to see we got chapters from Evie's point of view and the Villain's. I thought I remebered that was going to be a thing, but I was worried I imagined it - glad I didn't. Seeing into his mind, thoughts and motivations after getting to know Evie so well through the skits was a real treat!As for the characters, i really enjoyed them!! 🥰🥰 I really connected to our two mcs especially and i LOVED the dual pov omg 🤭😩 I’M NOT OK 😭😭 that ending was cruel Hannah, I thought we were friends. because I definitely know her. totally. ( hi Hannah if you’re out there I’d love to be friends btw) Some lines of Evie's POV that I thought were a fun addition to the story as she realizes that she has feelings for her boss. Look, regardless of the things I didn't like, the book was fine. I read it in one sitting and survived. There wasn't a lot of substance and it was definitely too long, but I didn't want to throw the book across the room or set it on fire. So it is at least entertaining enough and readable. But do I want to read it again? No. Do I want to continue the series? Unfortunately, no. But I do want to read a summary of what happens next. Would I recommend this to you? Maybe, if you want to read a low-stakes fantasy where nothing important happens for 80% of the book. It's not bad, but there's definitely better books out there I would prefer to spend time on.

I also feel like we got a lot of development of her character and her villain arc at the end?! 🤭 SLAY QUEEN 👑👑 we stan a morally grey fmc 🫡 I mean The Villain and Evie definitely gave me Fran and Max from "The Nanny" vibes and that is EVERYTHING!! Every interaction they had I ate it up and asked for seconds people!!

Characters as flat as French crêpes. Do you really need me to explain this one? Fine. How's this: If the main character were an instrument, she'd be a cowbell. Attractive murderers were always good kissers; she was pretty sure she’d heard that expression before.”

Now that the formal part is out of the way... THIS BOOK HAS BECOME MY ENTIRE PERSONALITY. It made me scream and cry. At one point I was jumping on my couch because I couldn't handle all of the emotion it provoked in me. Without getting too deep and personal in a BOOK REVIEW. Hello, Hannah this isn't therapy. But this book truly felt like it, sometimes when the numbness of depression settles in, you begin to miss feeling the big stuff. While parts of this story are nicely brought to life by the narration, I struggled with the odd inflexions used by Em Eldridge. This made the listening experience jarring, and I found it hard to immerse myself in the unfolding story. The dramatic slipping on a piece of paper and landing in the MMC’s arms? The looooooooong moon eyed stares and the barely touching hands before jerking away in embarrassment? Yeah it’s all in there. the romance was just so cute!! i actually really appreciated that there was no spice and loved the ya feel…like this book embodies something that my inner fangirl self loved !! it was just such an enjoyable, lighthearted, hilarious, and fast paced romp and im so glad i read it. it sometimes came off as episodic which like that was the og format so obviously it makes sense and I really liked it because it kept me interested and the chapters were short after the prologue but we don’t talk about that. It was tropey for sure but i could feel the author having fun and i loved that. why shouldn’t we write books with tropes we know we all love? Thank you Red Tower Books for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review! As always, all opinions are my own.Only the gods would know what he did on his personal side of the expansive and decidedly gloomy stone structure.