By BlueBlue and Meiji Anno. Released in Japan as “Danzai Sareteiru Akuyaku Reijou to Irekawatte Konyakusha-tachi wo Buttobashitara, Dekiai ga Matteimashita” by M Novels f. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by JCT.

There are good elements to this book, which I promise I’ll get to later. But for the most part, as I was reading this I found myself thinking ‘we’ve finally hit the era of generic villainess books’. It’s boilerplate, and most things that it does do well (such as our heroine beating up her problems) are done better in other, more famous series and also ignored for the majority of the book. It features a super evil “heroine” character, which I have grown very bored with – if you’re going to be evil, you’d better at least be as interesting as Lilia. But the most annoying part of the book may be how easy it is. Everyone immediately figures out the problem and comes up with a solution. Our main character is overpowered. And mostly it’s just her friends doing a Noel Coward play while the heroine fumes. This book suffers from being smug.

You know how this begins. Truck-kun. After our main character is killed saving a mother and child from a truck at the cost of her own life, she meets a goddess who has a deal to make for her. She was killed by accident, so can’t be reincarnated in Japan. But fortunately there’s a bad situation in another world. Alexandra Vistriano is in a time loop. She has been betrayed by her friends and fiance, exiled, and brutally murdered four times now, and it’s about to be five. Her soul is so damaged by despair that she’s at risk of being lost forever. Could the main character, who grew up learning karate and is a bit of a tomboy, step into the villainess’ place? Of course! The new Alexandra has no issue beating the crap out of everyone trying to exile and betray her. That said… when she does that, time loops AGAIN, and Alexandra has to do everything for a sixth time.

I did mention the good things. There are some plot conceits I quite liked involving the time loops, which also help explain one of the book’s biggest and most ludicrous handwaves, the amulets of protection. I also really loved Alexandra finally snapping at the end of the book and screaming at Celette for everything she’d done, expressing sheer horror and disbelief that she could possibly be so cruel and uncaring. It felt earned. That said… the rest of the book feels too easy. Since Alexandra has her past life memories, AND she now has a ton more magic power thanks to the reincarnation, this particular loop mostly consists of the heroine failing over and over again and everyone sneering at her. Also, the main love interest is, well, a jealous and obsessive stalker, and YMMV with those types – I just read one two days ago in the other October CIW debut, so was less forgiving this time around.

And of course, one more common villainess book cliche – despite wrapping up all its plotlines in the first volume, there are four more. For completists only.