“Don’t listen to stories encouraging you to be good, telling you to shine in a filthy world and patiently endure suffering. Screw suffering. It’s too hard to be good. Do the easy thing. Do the evil thing. Grasp whatever you desire in your greedy bloodstained hands.”
Featuring a motley crew of unhinged villains, lots of questionable choices, and a shit ton of wicked and wacky humour, Sarah Rees Brennan’s Long Live Evil is a diabolically fun yet surprisingly poignant take on a portal fantasy.
What would you do if you were presented with a life or death opportunity to enter your favourite fantasy series? For Rae, whose entire life collapsed 3 years ago when she got diagnosed with cancer, the choice is easy. All she must do is step into the world of Eyam and steal the Flower of Life and Death, which should be a piece of cake with her infinite knowledge of the story. That is, until she wakes up in the body of Rahela, the evil stepsister to the heroine, who is due to be executed the next day. Together with a motley crew of the most wicked characters, she starts scheming to pull off this deadly heist and maybe, possibly give the villains a chance at a happy ending, if they can surive until the final page.
Within the first few pages, Sarah Rees Brennan just sets the tone and it’s honestly an absolute trainwreck in the best way possible from there on out. Long Live Evil is ridiculously entertaining, campy, and extremely meta, and somehow it just works? I will admit that the first couple of chapters were a bit overwhelming and had me worried that the wackiness would become tiresome after a while, but holy smokes did my trust in Brennan pay off in the end.
Rae is just an absolute hoot to follow, and I absolutely loved her ‘devil may care’ attitude (because this is all fiction anyway, right?). The way that she navigates this fantasy world and interacts with all the in-world characters was entirely too amusing, and the culture clashing between her 21st century Earth customs and the outdated way of life in the world of Eyam resulted in so many hysterical scenarios that had me cackling out loud more times than I’d like to admit.
Though while Rae absolutely carried the story for me, I also really loved some of the ‘minions’ that she recruits for her evil master plan. Especially Key (the unhinged and slightly sociopathic guard with a dangerously seductive grin) and The Cobra (a rakish spymaster with a heart of gold despite his interestingly traumatic backstory) really captured my heart, and their character arcs had some surprising twists and turns that had my jaw on the floor and hit me right in the feels. Not to mention the slow-burn romance elements with killing as their love language… chef’s kiss!!!
Long Live Evil truly just kept subverting and shattering my expectations at every possible opportunity, which created an exciting level of unpredictability that totally took me by surprise, especially given the fact that Rae knows how this story is supposed to end. Moreover, I really liked how Brennan cleverly used Rae’s modern sensibilities to deliver an hysterical level of meta commentary on the fantasy genre that is not only extremely funny but also gives this story unexpected layers of depth and nuance.
Because honestly, it’s not just all shits and giggles. Rae’s experience with cancer, based on Brennan’s own harrowing life experiences, looms like a constant dark cloud over the story, and I really appreciated the deeper themes of mortality, mental health, morality, and the dire consequences of your actions. It doesn’t take long before fiction and reality start to blur, which quickly raised the emotional stakes to unbelievable heights and resulted in some heavy emotional gut punches that just hurt so good.
At some points Long Live Evil does admittedly get a bit convoluted with the double narrative of the ‘original’ story and the unexpected divergences due to Rae’s meddling, and I honestly think the multi-POV set-up only increased the chaos. For me, Lord Marius and Emer’s perspectives paled a bit in comparison to Rae’s loud and audacious narration, but I do have to say that I eventually warmed up to them as the plot thickened.
And ultimately, there’s truly no denying that Brennan absolutely nailed the execution of this story, ending on a cruelly bittersweet cliffhanger that could very well kickstart my own villain origin story if I don’t get the next instalment asap. If you are looking for a refreshingly subversive and delightfully twisted story that simultaneously feels like a love letter to and a diss track about the fantasy genre, then I can’t recommend Long Live Evil highly enough.
Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. Long Live Evil is scheduled for release on August 1st, 2024.
