bookheaven | Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World

Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World by Mark Waddell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is what happens if you try to get a promotion when you work in a hellscape. This had such strong Wolfram and Hart vibes (from the Buffyverse), could easily imagine Lindsey or Lilah in Colin's shoes but the nice thing about Colin's bosses Dark Enterprises is they are more inclusive than just a law firm.

So Colin is....not quite an unreliable narrator nor is he truly an antihero but he IS the hero in his own eyes. He's been working for DE for years now as a no name schlub in HR. His immediate superior, Sunil, is out to get him in trouble with their boss Ms Kettering because Colin escaped his rape attempt at a party (and Sunil is too hot to believe anyone should say no to him). However in DE, getting terminated doesn't mean you lose your job. You are literally terminated.

Fearing for his life, and believing being 'Mr. Nice Guy' has kept him from promotion and all the good things in life, Colin, when given the chance, breaks company rules and makes a deal on the side with one of the dark entities that deals with DE. He sets it free in return for that promotion. Colin gets his wish. He's now the personal assistant to the CEO and on track for middle management. Only the thing he set free plans to destroy the world.

And this is where I waivered on the story. We're being asked to invest in a real shit of a person. Colin isn't a good guy gone a little bad. Colin is happy to torture and kill the people at work who were mean with him. It's not until he falls for Eric and realizes his roomie and BFF Amira (physics genius) is not going to be spared by the entity does he start thinking 'huh maybe I should stop this.'

Amira I really liked and I liked Lex the enby librarian at DE who seems less thrilled with the OOOOO evil and more excited about all the amazing research possibilities that exist at DE. Eric, the love interest is a generic 'hot guy' who does turn out to be an important plot point that I a) guessed way before the reveal b) would have cared more if he were interesting but he's so forgettable I had to scroll through the blurb and other reviews to remember his name (sorry, but it's true)

So I waffled on the 3 vs 4 stars a bit. But it was amusing and dark and I loved Lex's observation that Colin will always make the worst possible choice, like how is that possible? They're not wrong. I did feel some of the ending was unearned (mostly the romantic subplot) but I did like how they dealt with the evil entity. This is one book I do hope is a one-off or if we drop back into Dark Entities that Colin is a side character because his story feels finished in one (though it is a bit open ended so I guess we'll see).

I did end up enjoying it and thought it was evil fun but if you like morally gray characters...this actually isn't the book for you. For my tastes Colin is several shades darker than grey but overall I did like it. Thanks to Netgalley for the arc.

View all my reviews