A young girl is reborn as the villainous Katarina Klaes， antagonist of the otome game Fortune Lover。 While this is nothing new， the twist this time is that she’s only recovering these memories as a teenager with a single year left before disaster strikes。 Surely this will change things！？ Right！？You wish。If you haven’t been in the My Next Life As A Villainess universe before， this book cares not for easing you into it。 It is definitely for fans of the series。 Even a lapsed reader such as myself w A young girl is reborn as the villainous Katarina Klaes， antagonist of the otome game Fortune Lover。 While this is nothing new， the twist this time is that she’s only recovering these memories as a teenager with a single year left before disaster strikes。 Surely this will change things！？ Right！？You wish。If you haven’t been in the My Next Life As A Villainess universe before， this book cares not for easing you into it。 It is definitely for fans of the series。 Even a lapsed reader such as myself was left largely high and dry trying to remember things from before。This state of affairs is certainly implied with the whole ‘side story’ label， but they really， really mean it。 This is not the place to get your first taste of what these characters or this ridiculously popular series has to offer。What if things were different， but they ended up essentially the same？ That appears to be the true premise of this side story， which shreds Katarina’s timeline down to one measly year， then… has her winning everybody over left and right。 How… novel？It’s weird - they get to fire off a couple of jokes about her not being able to climb trees or her fake snake looking not the slightest bit real， which are fairly cute asides that literally just lead to the same places。The whole point of something like this should be to do something original with the premise， like the upcoming yuri version， not to just make a minor tweak without standing out from the previous work。 There’s often questionable need for this to even exist。Katarina takes up gardening。 Again。 She decides to improve her magic。 Again。 The whole sword fighting angle seems to promise something new， but by that point they’ve spent 80% of the story resetting major parts of the status quo with numerous characters - Keith is next up and I doubt this will go any differently。It’s not all bad。 I like the addition of one of the mean girls to Katarina’s retinue （I think she’s new anyway） and the way she tries to secretly make things up to Maria for all her bullying did give me a laugh at how incredibly daft it is （to say nothing of how clever she thinks she’s being）。And this is built on a strong foundation。 The core of this series is silly and fun， even if the endless stream of cast members became a bit much for me after a point， so stripping it back to basics isn’t a bad call。 The Council of Katarina’s never really gets old either。3 stars - I mean， it’s fun to spend time with these characters again， but for a new angle on the story， a lot of the geometry looks far too much like everything that’s come before。 。。。more