I picked this book up for the premise: it’s pitched as Groundhog Day meets Deadpool and is about a chosen one character who has been brought to a fantasy world to save the kingdom. Every time she dies, she wakes up at the beginning of her story, forever stuck in a time loop. After hundreds of unsuccessful attempts to be the hero, she decides this time around, she’s going to be the villain instead: she’s going to become the Dark Lord.
I was pleasantly surprised to find out this is queer: Davi is bisexual. I swear that I now attract queer books to me, because I seem to be able to pick them out even when I’ve never heard about the queer content. Because I try to keep track of queer new releases, I was a little confused that I hadn’t known about this one, so I googled the title + bisexual to make sure I hadn’t just misunderstood the joke Davi makes in the first few pages. I was met with a string of reviews that all critiqued How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying for harmful bisexual stereotypes because Davi is so horny.
I was taken off guard by these reviews, because I—a bisexual woman—had just been delighting in Davi as a character. Far be it from me to defend a straight guy’s depiction of a queer woman, but I like Davi. I also find it interesting that it was okay for the main character to murder people and set out to be the villain, but thinking about sex a lot was a bridge too far.
Those reviews aren’t necessarily wrong, though. It is a stereotype that bisexuals are overly sexual, and Davi does fit into that. I just think that I have read so many bisexual characters of every conceivable personality type that I am not personally concerned about one that matches a stereotype. That’s one of my favourite things about the explosion of queer lit in recent years: it gives more space for queer characters to be complex and flawed, not just perfect role models. I had a great time reading about a horny bisexual character in this book, partly because it was a change of pace: that’s not the way most bi characters are written. I laughed at Davi wanting the hot orc woman to step on her, because what self-respecting sapphic D&D fan hasn’t thought the same thing??
I think we can have horny bisexual characters sometimes. As a treat.
What drew me into the story was the tone: Davi takes almost nothing seriously, which makes sense when you’re trapped in a time loop and nothing you do has lasting consequences. There are also footnotes, which I always enjoy in a novel, with more jokes and asides. (Sidenote: the audiobook does a great job incorporating those.) The beginning of the book has Davi experimenting and dying and trying again over and over. It was fun to see her figure out her path to becoming the Dark Lord as if it was a video game.
I did feel like it slowed down a bit near the middle, where the time loop aspect faded away, because she stopped dying so much. But another twist pulled me back in—not to mention the F/F romance that’s a little bit more sincere than I was expecting from Davi—and now I’ll definitely be picking up the second book in the duology: Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me, which comes out in May.
I’m always intrigued by a time loop story. Add a D&D-style fantasy, a bisexual main character, a queernorm world, and a heavy dose of humour, and it’s no surprise I clicked with this one. If you don’t want to read about a bisexual main character who thinks a lot about sex, skip this one. But if you’re up for a raunchy fantasy comedy, I recommend it. The ending also gave this a little more depth, so I’m looking forward to seeing where the story goes next.
