Django Wexler

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and this is my honest and objective review. There is a nice amount of main character snark and humor. I liked the Groundhog Day-type premise, and initially I found it intriguing that after failing so miserably so many times at taking the just and honorable road, the main character Davi tosses up her hands and chooses evil. I wanted to like this book, so much, and I was prepared to fully enjoy it, but: too much graphic gore (a content warning about that should have been included along with the other content warnings) and there were just a truly ridiculous amount of footnotes (they went from quirky storytelling device to extremely annoying distraction in record time). This book is not what I was expecting from the description and both the gore and excessive footnotes were a huge turn-off (I started ignoring the footnotes altogether about 15% of the way in, and once I got over my FOMO it made for a much smoother reading experience). I had a hard time getting invested in Davi (I kept trying and failing to find reasons to care about her) and I struggled to finish the story. I tried to enjoy the ride as it all played out, but I just couldn't. This was not the book for me.… (mere)

I received an advance copy via NetGalley.

This book came to my attention when the author sold the media rights to the book. I can see why--this is the very definition of a whimsical high concept: a human hero, reincarnated hundreds of times over in a fantasy world, gives up on saving the world and resolves to become the Dark Lord instead. Davi remembers little of Earth except for pop culture; really, the book is loaded with Gen X references that will make readers of a certain age sputter or guffaw throughout.

I won't delve much into the story because the concept really sets it up nicely. Expect tributes to many of the major fantasy tropes. Wexler knows the conventions well and twists them in fun ways.

Now, there are a few things that will make some readers pause. There is the whole Dark Lord bit. Expect moral ambiguity, and some blatant evilness, especially as Davi commits to this new path. It can make for difficult reading. There's also a lot of sex, as Wexler subverts expectations for a female protagonist. Davi is pansexual and horny; this can be humorous sometimes, and feel overdone at others.

I overall enjoyed how this book twisted around genre conventions. I hope that it does end up being produced, and most importantly, that they do justice to the raunchy material.… (mere)