Notorious No More: The Villainess Enjoys Feigning Incompetence Volume 2

稀代の悪女、三度目の人生で【無才無能】を楽しむ Light Novel #2

by Hanako Arashi, Jeremy Browning (Translator), Wan☆Hachipisu (Illustrator)

As a student of the Royal Academy, Laviange has perfected the art of slacking off. Despite being a brilliant mage, she hides behind her reputation as an incompetent individual, spending her days sneaking cuddles from her beloved sacred beasts and avoiding responsibility at all costs. Life is blissfully uneventful—until the Poison Box Garden incident shatters the calm. When a long streak of bullying cases comes to light, the academy is forced to take action. But not everyone is ready to accept the consequences. Sienna, one of the main perpetrators, has become a pariah, and she blames Laviange for her downfall. Bent on revenge, she enlists the help of her powerful best friend to strike back. Soon, Laviange senses a new malevolent, ghostly presence haunting the academy grounds... Join Laviange on a new adventure as she misuses her sacred beasts’ powers and smacks down ghosts with her new fan-shaped magical tool!

Genres: Light Novel

334 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 10, 2023

About the author

嵐華子

Reviews

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Punches don’t get pulled and lost some of the luster of the first one. No one seems to be concerned with the demon who tried to twist a possible soon to be sacred beast, or the fact that it had manipulated and severely hurt two teenagers. Granted, the teens were pretty twisted, but the adults seemed to have NO concern for their own children/adoptive children. This is a BRUTAL world.

Also, the love interests are WAAAAY too young for the MC h, who remembers her two previous lives, one of which she lived to the ripe old age of 86! So she sees all of the kids as just that, kids. To imagine her “faking in love” with one of them and marriage and all that entails is SUPER squick.

3, not bad but not going to continue with this series, stars.

[Natalie H · Rating 3 out of 5]

February 2026
Kindle edition

Hmm, guess it lost its novelty. I didn't jump to get the third book. This one was more of a read when you have a moment throughout the day, that could be why. The prince was clingy but the backstory was cute. The sister deserved what she got and Lavi gave the reader a tour around her empire. Secrets were found out by the brother, the prince and the father. Still not sure what to think of him. It felt pretty wrapped up apart from the hooded figure. May revisit.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Super disjointed and relies very heavily on dumb humor to gloss over important plots. It retells the story from multiple viewpoints, and they’re all varying levels of obsessive or crazy. I don’t understand the severe abuse of MC in both her original life and this one…and it’s illogical that she doesn’t care about her parents as much as Mihail and Sienna for being the grandchildren of “them,” when her father would be the son of those same people.

[Pieter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The series remains a fun light-hearted read with a few darker undertones with the MC being an entertaining twist on the usual villainess tropes. It comes with its eye roll moments as expected. The whole risky novel author and the fake sexual innuendo at certain points come to mind. The plot itself is a bit confusing even though we get some explanation about events in this volume. Then again, it is more about characters and events than the why. So, a decent read that fitted expectations.

[Mariána K · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is definitely best described as silly. The main character seems a little unhinged to me as she runs around doing shenanigans. I really liked reading the first one but as I was reading through the second one I had to take a break here and there because the charming behaviors from volume 1 began to become annoying and volume two. The whole grandmother act seems really forced and not very accurate to how grandparents actually act. More often than not it forces the character playing the villainous to be showing less intelligence than she has. It gets a little grading after a while, and I find myself sympathizing often with the side characters that are exasperated with her.

Towards the end of the book it finally gets to the meat and potatoes of the story and I found the actual events going on with the primary story to be interesting and the shenanigans wrapped in it engaging and funny. I laughed out loud quite a bit during the climax and fill myself beyond bemused by the wording choice of half of her conversations. She welcomes misunderstandings and acts like she has no idea what people are thinking. If she really doesn't understand what everybody's thinking then I question her intelligence.

I haven't decided yet if I'm interested in reading the third book. The story is interesting and engaging but like I said before the character that is the MC is starting to annoy me more than entertain me. Maybe what I'm thinking is more along the lines of this is definitely not a binge-worthy series, it's more of a pace yourself or you'll burn out kind of story.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely adore this series!

This was a great sequel to the series. We get a little more backstory and some follow-up for our loveable and loathsome characters alike. I am excited to continue this story!

[Lissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fun. I did like it less than the first one - I’ve been trying to pin down why; maybe because it dragged a bit in the middle ish? Unsure. It was still fun though; somewhat of an absurdist tale filled with misunderstandings (deliberate or otherwise).

[Babs · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5