A review by bree_h_reads
Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

Did not finish book. Stopped at 41%.
41% DNF

Just say coffee. You don’t have to keep saying “cauldron brew” it’s unnecessarily long and gets repetitive. The first widely accepted documentation of coffee is in the 1400s with the first coffee house (allegedly) popping up in 1475. Say coffee.

I think that is a good introduction to my general feelings on the book.

Assistant to the Villain is a book based on the TikTok series of the same name by the author. While I personally enjoy the TikTok series quite a bit, I don’t think it should have been put into a book.

Assistant to the Villain follows Evie (the assistant) and Tristan (the villain) as they try to uncover a mole in the villain’s operations and fall in love. At least that was the promised premise. Unfortunately the book is an insta-love where the characters refuse to admit they’re in love for reasons. Also the mystery takes a back seat.

The introduction to the book doesn’t set it up for success with a prologue that is unnecessary and sets up the book as an insta-love. Once you hit Chapter One you immediately realise the prologue was completely unnecessary and it feels like it was tacked on just before publication.

It was also riddled with inconsistencies from overall inconsistencies where in one scene it established one thing and in the next another (ie. “I’ve been here 5 months” and “thanks to Evie intern deaths have gone down in the past 7 months.”) to inconsistencies within the scene (ie. “all the vents in the office were sealed” and “the vent in the boss’ office connected directly to the vent in the cafeteria, I’m going to open it so he can overhear conversations between the other employees.”)

Overall I also found the characters largely bland. While each had a moment and I somewhat enjoyed their interactions, nothing about them really stood out to me (aside from Blade sexually harassing women all the time but it’s okay because he’s funny). The lack of investment in the characters wasn’t helped by Evie and Tristan constantly thirsting over each other, which I often find obnoxious in MCs. It’s fine to be attracted to the love interest, but the constant horny-ness gets old fast. This isn’t helped by the fact Tristan’s “hotness” is not just physical, but also because he does the bare minimum and doesn’t SA women. Wow, what a standup guy. Evie was also insufferably stupid.

Dialogue was also bogged down by an overuse of dialogue and action tags, never letting the characters just TALK. Also bad sibling dialogue, they literally said “brother” and “sister” as a form of address to each other.

The narrator didn’t help my enjoyment, her performance was overall lacking and somewhat grating.

What made me finally set the book down was a very stupid and contrived conflict (that normally shows up during the 3rd act) being shoved into the middle where it made no sense. It’s made worse by the fact that if Tristan gave Evie 2 minutes to explain and Evie did more than stand there and stammer then the conflict wouldn’t have happened at all. FURTHERMORE when Evie did leave during the conflict literally everything fell apart because she was apparently the one running the operation and was the ONLY ONE holding on to information she had no business being the only person in possession of.

That’s not to say there was nothing I enjoyed about the book. There was an occasional joke that would land, sometimes the proses would really stand out, the occasional nickname Tristan gave to Evie, interesting concepts and ideas. It’s just nothing lasted long enough to keep me reading. Personally I think the book could be improved by either making in an urban fantasy and/or leaning into it as a satire alongside another, heavy round of edits and more beta readers.

Overall the book was boring and slow, but had potential. I hope the author can improve her craft in the next two books, but this book is just not it.

Also why is everyone smirking all the time? Do they have a condition?
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