It’s been a while since I did a book review. I started a new job in January, and that really took up all of my reading time. But one of my best friends recommended How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler to me. HtBtDLaDT is basically Groundhog Day meets Deadpool with a dash of Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s a darkly humourous fantasy romp about what happens when the hero decides she’s done playing nice.

Davi was summoned to another world to save it from the Dark Lord. Noble enough. Except she’s failed. Hundreds of times. Every death sends her right back to the beginning, waking up in the same pool or water, in the same damn forest, being exposited to by the same old man, doomed to repeat the same futile quest. After 277 tries and over a thousand cumulative years of dying in increasingly ridiculous, tragic, and stupid ways… she snaps.

Screw destiny. Screw the prophecy. If the Dark Lord always wins, it’s time she joined the winning side.

Armed with centuries of knowledge, a fraying sense of morality, and an immature brand of gallows humour, Davi sets out to become the next Dark Lord. First step, she just needs a horde to take her to the convocation where the Dark Lord is crowned. How hard could that be?

HtBtDLaDT is told in Davi’s unhinged first-person voice, often careening between swaggering confidence and total panic. This is a tale of necromancy, time loops, save-scumming, and what happens when the ‘chosen one’ decides she’s had enough of being chosen.

Let’s get this out of the way up front: I’m annoyed. Not because the book is necessarily bad, but because it ends on such a blatant cliffhanger that it feels like half a story. I don’t mind a good sequel hook, but I like a book to stand on its own, at least a little. This was written with a blinking “To Be Continued…” sign hanging over every major plot thread.

My second major complaint came early, and it stuck with me the whole way through. The narrator, Davi, offhandedly says something like “I think I’m from Earth? Like, I know Darth Vader is Luke’s father, or something?” and then proceeds to pepper the rest of the story with modern pop culture references like she just stepped out of a Reddit comment thread. It immediately gave me Ready Player One flashbacks, but without the contextual justification. In RPO, the character was raised on a steady diet of retro media, so it made sense within the context. In How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying, it felt jarring and out of place. A relentless stream of quips, one-liners, and pop culture references that constantly yanked me out of the high fantasy setting the book was trying to build.

And speaking of the setting, it had so much potential. The early parts, with the time loop playing a major role, and Davi experimenting with different outcomes, it felt sharp and fun. I loved the save-scumming vibes and the mild panic that crept into her narration when a time fork turned sour. But then… it just sort of softened. The world turned cozy. Characters were chipper. Consequences were few and far between. Even the main consequence of dying and having to start again feels flat. She says there’s no guarantee that she could make it back to the same spot a second time, but I don’t believe her complaints of having to redo a few months when she’s already lived for a thousand years.

Davi herself is chaotic, in that annoying terminally online young millennialhow kind of way. Very Deadpool-esque or Harley Quinn. She’s unhinged, quippy, and a bit of a jerk, which can work, but I didn’t find her particularly believable as a rising Dark Lord. She doesn’t lead so much as stumble into leadership, and her “horde” follows her with an ease that felt unearned. None of her captains challenge her authority in a meaningful way, and given how little she inspires, intimidates, or even organizes them, I couldn’t really buy that she was holding this would-be evil empire together. She’s woefully sincere and caring for someone aspiring to Dark Lord-om.

That said, HtBtDLaDT isn’t without its charms. I really enjoyed the initial worldbuilding, especially how the magic system was explained and used. The ending, in particular, where Davi overcomes a giant worm beast using the nuances of that magic system. Getting swallowed whole and then blowing it up from the inside? Genuinely me laugh

So, will I read the second book? Begrudgingly, yes. I’ve got it on hold at the library, and it’s the kind of story that’s decent to listen to while I’m working. But How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying isn’t cracking my top ten books anytime soon. It had a solid premise, flashes of brilliance, and a narrator who was fun in theory, but in execution, it all felt a bit too thin, too try-hard, and too sincere to really stick the landing of the “Dark Lord” moniker.