Take this for what its worth; A LOT of the reviews here were from people given free copies. I appreciate them calling it out in their review tho.

My biggest complaint with the book is in the headline, but its more of a personal dislike, rather than a complaint with the book so will hold off.

For the story, protagonist is flat, relationships are forced, and narration is kinda annoying (style not the voice actor… well both a little).

The lead character is a villain, I get it, but the author tries to beat you over the head with it. And that is fine, I’m okay with not having a knight in shining armor anchor the book, but he makes him fairly insufferable. There is no vulnerability, no real motivation, no substance, MC is just a villain and powerful, and thats supposed to be enough.

There is also the forced “we came together in an insanely short amount of time” trope. Author tries to subvert it a bit, but I think the big fail is its really not a short amount of time, but the author makes it feel like it so your stuck in this limbo where you feel like this is taking place over days at most and he drops the bomb on you that its been months, and it makes it feel wonky.

This has been brought up in other reviews but the MC breaks the fourth wall several times, and its not cheeky. If its the MC telling a story okay, but it feels real time and then it shifts to a reader insult and it ruins any momentum the author had created and its supposed to be funny I guess?

Narrator is okay? Liked most of his performance but the MC is not a comfortable character. Its stiff and a bit of a caricature what a “villain” should sound like.

Small rant: My biggest complaint about this book is that the author basic sh1ts on any trope there is but then proceeds to follow all the tropes. It’s not clever point out how basic other themes and ideas are and then have that exact same thing happen. Author obviously is a fan of the genre(s) and knows and references giants of it, but then stands on their shoulders to look smugly at those ideas, instead of creating something better. At the end of the day, there aren’t many new concepts ideas left, and while everyone loves a story that seems original, the great stories are the ones where we care about the who and the why of the things, not as much what is happening.