Review of Book 1, How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying
FORMAT/INFO: Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me was published on May 27th, 2025 by Orbit Books. It is 384 pages long and is available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Good news: Davi’s succeeded in her mission to become the Dark Lord! Bad news: the army under her control expects her to lead them on a glorious mission to eradicate all humans. Having been trapped in a time loop in this fantasy world for centuries (a loop that resets upon her death), Davi knows how poorly a wilder/human war will go for the humans. Even more scary, Davi isn’t quite sure how well the time loop is working given recent events. She can’t just endlessly try different solutions to fix the problem because this time, her decisions might be permanent. It’s time for one last Hail Mary gambit: peace talks between the Dark Lord and the human kingdom.
Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me is a solid conclusion to this comedy fantasy duology, even if it is able to have a little less fun with the premise this time around. (If you haven’t read book one, spoilers ahead, proceed at your own risk!) One of the fun things about How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying was that Davi essentially got to treat the world like a video game. She tries something, it fails, she dies spectacularly, she tries again until she’s found a way to master a scenario. With the time loop now in question, Davi now has to treat the world very, very carefully. In short, this adventure becomes much more of a straightforward fantasy adventure with no do-overs.
On the one hand, this pushes Davi into some more character growth. After all, she’s become callous and casual with playing with people’s lives because for her, there are no repercussions. If she kills or betrays someone, they’ll come back the next loop without any harm or memory of what happens. She doesn’t get that out this time. It’s a fact she forgets at first, but leads to her rediscovering her empathy - along with an existential crisis over the fact that the fate of the world is on her shoulders and she doesn’t have a safety net anymore.
Even without the time loop elements, this still manages overall to be a fun and funny story. Davi’s fourth-wall breaking quips return, and she has to go on some wild adventures in her quest for peace. That includes finding out once and for all why this time loop is happening to her in the first place. This finale does a solid job of providing that answer, keeping things relatively simple in both explanation and solution.
Unfortunately, what also returns is Davi’s rampant horniness. It feels like Davi can't interact with a single character without commenting on their attractiveness or impressive physical endowments. It quickly became grating to keep sitting through this objectification. Just because the comments come from a bisexual woman doesn’t make it more palatable.
Setting that aside, Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me manages to be a fun summer fluff read. It does manage to be genuinely funny and to make you care about Davi, her annoying habits aside. If you need a breezy break from more serious affairs, give the Dark Lord Davi duology a try.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Good news: Davi’s succeeded in her mission to become the Dark Lord! Bad news: the army under her control expects her to lead them on a glorious mission to eradicate all humans. Having been trapped in a time loop in this fantasy world for centuries (a loop that resets upon her death), Davi knows how poorly a wilder/human war will go for the humans. Even more scary, Davi isn’t quite sure how well the time loop is working given recent events. She can’t just endlessly try different solutions to fix the problem because this time, her decisions might be permanent. It’s time for one last Hail Mary gambit: peace talks between the Dark Lord and the human kingdom.
Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me is a solid conclusion to this comedy fantasy duology, even if it is able to have a little less fun with the premise this time around. (If you haven’t read book one, spoilers ahead, proceed at your own risk!) One of the fun things about How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying was that Davi essentially got to treat the world like a video game. She tries something, it fails, she dies spectacularly, she tries again until she’s found a way to master a scenario. With the time loop now in question, Davi now has to treat the world very, very carefully. In short, this adventure becomes much more of a straightforward fantasy adventure with no do-overs.
On the one hand, this pushes Davi into some more character growth. After all, she’s become callous and casual with playing with people’s lives because for her, there are no repercussions. If she kills or betrays someone, they’ll come back the next loop without any harm or memory of what happens. She doesn’t get that out this time. It’s a fact she forgets at first, but leads to her rediscovering her empathy - along with an existential crisis over the fact that the fate of the world is on her shoulders and she doesn’t have a safety net anymore.
Even without the time loop elements, this still manages overall to be a fun and funny story. Davi’s fourth-wall breaking quips return, and she has to go on some wild adventures in her quest for peace. That includes finding out once and for all why this time loop is happening to her in the first place. This finale does a solid job of providing that answer, keeping things relatively simple in both explanation and solution.
Unfortunately, what also returns is Davi’s rampant horniness. It feels like Davi can't interact with a single character without commenting on their attractiveness or impressive physical endowments. It quickly became grating to keep sitting through this objectification. Just because the comments come from a bisexual woman doesn’t make it more palatable.
Setting that aside, Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me manages to be a fun summer fluff read. It does manage to be genuinely funny and to make you care about Davi, her annoying habits aside. If you need a breezy break from more serious affairs, give the Dark Lord Davi duology a try.
3:00 AM | 
Posted by
Caitlin G. |
Labels:
book review
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