by Sarah Rees Brennan

“ It’s pretty simple: if the story paints you as the villain, embrace the title and hold it close. ”

— Initial Book Reaction

Meter Ratings

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Meter Ratings 〰️

Overall Book Vibes:

Meh

Trigger Warnings:

Cancer, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood

Summary

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Summary 〰️

Meet Rae. Rae has stage 4 terminal cancer that has made her life hell for years. She has recently been told that she will not survive. Her diagnosis drove her (former) best friend into her (ex) boyfriend’s arms. She feels hopeless, abandoned, and is pretty much having the worst time.

Her only constants throughout her days are pain from the cancer, her devoted little sister Alice, and Time of Iron, aka Alice’s favorite book series. Rae humored herself by half-listening to Alice’s dramatic reading of book one, but then found herself so invested in the plot that she tore through the rest of the series in no time. It’s a high fantasy tale about a heartbroken emperor, living in the kingdom of Eyam, on the edge of a chasm out of which the undead like to crawl, and it is a welcome escape.

Until, well, it isn’t.

When a mysterious stranger appears at Rae’s bedside and gives her a chance to save her own life by becoming a part of the Time of Iron series, what can she say but yes?

It is only after our heroine wakes up in a new, pain-free body in Eyam that she discovers her journey through this fantastical landscape has to be done as the book’s treacherous, villainous (and quite attractive) antagonist.

What is there to do but assemble a cavalry of the most evil characters in Eyam so she can get back to her real life?

My Review

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My Review 〰️

To be completely honest, I struggled through the first 200 pages of this book at least, and considered DNFing it. I am, however, very glad I stuck with it because the latter half was quite a ride.

Let’s start with what I liked: I absolutely loved the fantasy world Brennan built! The lore of Eyam and its storybook characters are so well done. I liked being able to read from the perspectives of each of the important characters in the book, and Brennan did a terrific job at giving them each unique voices that fit their backgrounds. The humor in the book was also fun – I had some laugh out loud moments for sure – and some of the twists in the back half of the book genuinely caught me off guard (I love a good twist.) I liked that the story our main character has read is different than the one she gets dropped into, simply because of her presence, and nothing is as it seems.

Being able to delve into the world of Eyam and get into the heads of its characters was such a delight, and I appreciated that most characters experienced a marked growth by the end.

Unfortunately, I did find that the main character sort of…took away from the parts of this story that I really liked. Hear me out – I know, obviously, that this is a fantasy book. However, the way the main character reacts to being dropped into a world that isn’t supposed to exist doesn’t ring true to me. The way that she accepts a mysterious stranger’s offer to do magic was rushed, in my opinion. She is quite flippant in her entrance to the world of Eyam, and her mental adjustment to having ended up as the villain only took a few sentences. She kind of just immediately accepts it and moves on.

(Then again, I’ve never been on death’s door with an incurable disease, so I totally acknowledge that my perspective on this is wildly skewed. Perhaps if I faced the same fate, I’d leap into the chance to be somewhere different without question.)

All in all, Rae’s character was a bit too unrealistic to me, making many situations in the book jarring to read. Her modern slang in this fantasy world is extremely out of place, and she doesn’t try to act like she belongs or fits in. Chapters from her perspective snap between silly and serious themes so quickly that they took me out of the story. And Rae’s ‘I don’t care’ attitude made me not care whether or not she succeeded.

The real stakes of this book are in the other characters. I found myself rooting for Cobra and Emer. I wanted to spend more time with Lia and Marius. I basically just wanted to read the Time of Iron series itself, with the changes the FMC makes, but perhaps not with her.

Overall, this book has a great concept that is executed fairly well. Even though Rae’s character fell flat for me, I do want to continue reading this series and see where everyone ends up!

Overall Rating on my shelf: 3/5

Favorite Quotes

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Favorite Quotes 〰️

“She didn’t need to find herself. She needed a knife.”

— Page 28

“Odd to think if she slept with [spoiler] to get something, people would count that as her sin, not his. Nobody would condemn [spoiler] for taking what a women only offered because she was desperate. [Spoiler] couldn’t be ruined. ”

— Page 154

“Evil didn’t win often in stories. Usually good triumphed, but that meant the forces of darkness were statistically due a win.”

— Page 77

“Villains were never morning people. They had to stay sharp for midnight plotting. ”

— Page 74

The Workout

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The Workout 〰️

The Warmup

(aka we need to have good posture to SAUNTER WITH OUR HOT VILLAIN BOD)

1x Through

Squat Reverse Lunges - 6 per side
S Arms - 5 per side
Hip Circles - 10 in each direction
Jumping Jacks - 30 seconds

Cat Cow - 40 seconds
Alternating Pigeons - 5 per side
Thoracic Rotations - 5 per side
Walkout Scapular Pushups - 5 per side

Cat Cow

Alternating Pigeons

Thoracic Rotations

Walkout Scapular Pushups

Squat to Reverse Lunge

S Arms

Hip Circles

Jumping Jacks

Strength

Do one set of moves right after the other, then repeat the entire thing 3x

10-12 Swings (Explosive hip power = suggestive flirting)
Farmers Carries for 30 seconds (gear up them forearms for battle)
5 Wood Chops per side (imagine swinging a sword into an undead head)

8-10 Band Pushes(PUSH THAT DAMN KING INTO THE RAVINE)
6-8 Sprinter Stance Squats per side (stabilize your hips = swing a sword without slipping a disc)
8-10 Band Pulls (pulling Lia out the way is a FULL TIME JOB my lordt)