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Prison Life is Easy for a Villainess (Light Novel) #1

婚約破棄から始まる悪役令嬢の監獄スローライフ(上)

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公爵令嬢レイチェルは、許嫁であるエリオット王子から身に覚えのない罪を理由に婚約を破棄され、地下牢に投獄されてしまった。これは恋敵の陰謀か、はたまた政敵の罠か…!?そして、レイチェルは思った―!!プリズンイエーッ!ゴロゴロし放題のスローライフ!王妃教育もサボれてうるさい使用人もいない…楽しい休暇の始まりだ!準備万端整えていたレイチェルは、獄内でだらだら生活と王子への嫌がらせを心置きなく満喫する―!!

352 pages, Paperback

Published January 18, 2019

66 people are currently reading
219 people want to read

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Hibiki Yamazaki

4 books7 followers

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5 stars
228 (40%)
4 stars
191 (34%)
3 stars
104 (18%)
2 stars
30 (5%)
1 star
8 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
Profile Image for Susan.
477 reviews6 followers
December 24, 2019
Another slytherin girl story, where after the breakup the ex tried to ruin her but failed utterly because he is incompetent and she is smart enough to bring the government to a standstill from within a prison cell. There's something very satisfying in reading about how men kept failing to take a woman down because she's too smart for them. Very Irene Adler (ACD version). Decent art, fun read.
Profile Image for Joe.
11 reviews3 followers
November 30, 2019
I read the Web Novel fan translation of this book. It has been a long time since a book has made me stay up until 2 am clicking over to the next chapter.
The series is hilarious with one of the best protagonists ever. She makes all of her enemies dance in her palm from the comfort of her cell.
5 stars!
Profile Image for Jen.
3,477 reviews27 followers
February 23, 2022
Not sure where this is going, but it’s fun and unusual in that there is no love interest for the MC Rachel. She’s…a bit of a sociopath, so if she did have a love interest, they would have to be very VERY special. 3, kind of mean and the “bad guys” are more idiotic than bad, stars.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Tony Hisgett.
3,008 reviews36 followers
July 1, 2022
This was one of those books thrown up by Amazon and not something I would normally read, but I found the whole idea quite intriguing.

I found Rachel an interesting psychopath and the basic idea for the story had potential, but most of the actual story was just drivel. Perhaps it lost something in translation, but were the rest of the characters meant to be intellectually challenged adolescents?

By the end of the book my only thought was why would anybody write this boring nonsense.
Profile Image for Mistress OP.
729 reviews13 followers
December 16, 2023
this is pretty interesting but could have been a better read if the prince wasn't as over the top dumb.

3.5 round up.
3 reviews
March 30, 2022
Fantastic Read

Love the main protagonist, love the way she toys with the prince and his friends. I also love how she named the prince "lover" Miss Punching Bag.
Profile Image for Riri.
435 reviews28 followers
March 14, 2022
I read this in small doses at night, when I was swamped with work and fell sick. It's truly a hilarious and gleeful read, especially if you like a main character with a sadistic streak. The book begins with the classic villainess story opening scene, where Rachel gets dumped in public by her stupid fiancé who's fallen in love with another girl. Rachel is falsely accused of bullying and thrown into prison, and that's where she's slowly plotting her revenge while enjoying slow life in prison.

Yes. Slow life in prison.

Some might argue that Rachel might be too much, and that she's a "psycho" for the things she's done to others. However, I couldn't care less about morality in fiction so I find her actions very satisfying. The prince, his girlfriend, and his entourage are all so refreshingly stupid, and there isn't a single moment when I feel bad for them. If anything, I hope Rachel will keep going until they're thoroughly crushed.

It seems like this is a two-volume series, so the story won't get dragged out unnecessarily. Can't wait to see what Rachel is going to do next.
Profile Image for Lexie.
2,066 reviews357 followers
February 1, 2022
My favorite parts are Rachel being devious. My least favorite was...well the Prince and Margaret.

Overall this was fun, tho at times a bit disturbing (George is a bit of a siscon somehow) and honestly they probably should have her executed because no good can come of having that sociopath gain any amount of power.

Since they won't though...guess I'll enjoy watching Rachel destroy the kingdom!
4 reviews
March 14, 2022
Loved it even more than I thought I would...

This book is hilarious!!! I am a 29-year-old woman who adores anime and manga and have seen just about all of them but I still found myself wondering where this book -this story- had been my whole life. Any avid reader who has found themselves wishing they could just be left alone to read will enjoy this book! The way she lives it up in prison is inspiring, and the fact that Rachel is so smart with so much going on beneath the surface leaves you delighted and wondering what on earth she'll do next
189 reviews1 follower
March 7, 2022
True shut-in

With most light novels, the villainess usually ends up not truly being bad, only misunderstood. That's firmly not the case for our wonderful heroine this time. Rachel is an actual psychopath that somehow managed to be controlled by her fearful parents while fooling the world as a well-bred doll. Her unintelligent fiance and his cronies are getting their first taste of why she should be left alone.
Profile Image for Viki.
185 reviews7 followers
February 16, 2022
This is a straight up comedy, the humor will not be for everyone - either you can go along with the silliness of it all or you will find it dumb. I will give it credit for actually having a ‘villainess’ be villainess, although you might sympathize with her as she at least isn’t as dumb as everyone else, I kinda like that the author lets us know that Rachel is a true sociopath, she is just smart enough to play within the rules as to not go ‘too’ far… but get on her bad side and watch out, she will crush you without remorse.

As this is a comedy, the rest of the characters serve as targets of our villainess’s pranks and revenge or are super efficient spy’s working for Rachel helping her accomplish anything she needs done. The prince and his cronies are idiots, it is actually quite funny how ridiculous his plans to put Rachel in her place keep getting thwarted due to his idiocy. Even behind bars, Rachel is always 5 steps ahead.

You really have to suspend any logic or common sense when reading this one, nothing makes much sense, everything happens for the humor of it all. So if you can turn off your brain this one might make you laugh with its random and kinda cathartic paybacks, but again the humor won’t be for everyone.
95 reviews2 followers
February 23, 2022
Good

Like the fl. Enjoy how she is getting her brother straight. Would like to see how Duke reacts to his girlfriend. Looking forward to the next book to see how she straighten out the Prince and Margaret. Waiting on the second book, this one was a excellent read for me.
2 reviews
February 24, 2022
The Chick is EVIL!

The is funny, a funny tangent to the recent them of imprisoned protagonists. I do like the back sorry with all the parents though just watching the train wrecker.
Profile Image for Kasturi.
16 reviews21 followers
October 16, 2021
I read the translated webnovel and the entire story is a crack fic. Don't read this for a great story arc and character development. Read this as a light-hearted and humour filled story designed to make you love. Sometimes we need that more than anything else.
Profile Image for Vedran.
178 reviews
May 26, 2022
OMG

This has got to be one of funniest books I ever read. Or at lest the one I laughed at most.

It's ridiculous enough to be funny, but not enough to roll eyes and declare it too much to be funny.

It is written as a series of events, so there is no real storyline.
Profile Image for Sharon L.
600 reviews95 followers
June 26, 2025
You have to appreciate her demonic charm
Profile Image for Mystic DreamClouds.
523 reviews12 followers
August 11, 2022
Told in five chapters and further split into sub chapters I’m not sure if I’d consider the main character a psychopath or an intelligent villain.

Told in multiple events, Rachel’s engagement to Prince Elliot is broken in public without the King and Queen’s approval or the Duke and Duchess’s knowledge. Rachel, having already known this to occur, willingly goes to the dungeons happily. Then begins a back and forth between Rachel and Elliot as Rachel brings her comfort of living into the dungeon and Elliot tries to make her regret and apologize.

The story isn’t unique to light novels. There are multiple light novels where the main heroine is condemned by a Prince for his new lover and the main heroine turns it to her advantage. What makes this book stand out though is the main heroine. Rachel is intelligent but she’s also an extremist when getting back at others in sometimes torturous ways.

There’s no doubt about Rachel being intelligent. She is able to anticipate and plot her next moves as she knows her competitors well. Although she may take her grudges a bit too far and long, she is a master in getting attention and torturing. Rachel is also a lazy person who loves sleeping but can be dedicated to her work as seen by how she wrote countless books in under a month. She also owns an underground organization, namely the Black Cats of the Dark Night which was unknown to even her own family until she was thrown into jail.

The story is far from repetitive. The writing is very calm, paced and somewhat mesmerizing. Each subchapter is divided into further parts of present or past events, perspective switches and flashbacks. Surprisingly it’s not annoying to say the least and helps the story flow. At first the book may be confusing however as it progresses the plot becomes much clearer and developed. One thing I liked was that although Rachel was in a dungeon and her actions were limited, she kept the story interesting. There was never a dull moment with her. From her responses, to her actions and to her schemes, Rachel embodied a true villainess that was confident, strong, intelligent and brutal.

Overall, I think this was a good book but was a little too calm for me. Rachel needed a challenge and there seemed to be no one to provide her with that opportunity. Majority of the other characters felt dumb and couldn’t think ahead or analyze as smartly as Rachel does. Although Sophia, her maid, was smart she admires Rachel and likely wouldn’t go against her although I do love their relationship.

I’m looking forward to reading the next volume and seeing what decision the King & Queen make and if Rachel ever makes it out of the dungeon.

Read more reviews @ Mystic's Review Shelf
1,452 reviews26 followers
January 25, 2022
When Rachel's fiancee tries to break off her engagement and send her to jail, she's more than ready for him. Oh, she'll go to jail. And she'll stop hiding behind the "demure fiancee" mask she's been wearing this whole time, and become a proper villainess.

This was rather light comedy for most of the book, before veering into a couple of short glimpses of backstory that ruined the entire book for me.

First, the comedy. If you've read at least otome-game based story, you've got enough context to know what this story is riffing on, and even if you haven't, you can still likely figure out all the tropes this one is skewering. Rachel is indeed in prison---yet she's more in charge from there than she was outside. No more lessons. No more playing nice girl. No more putting up with a stupid prince and his stupid friends and trying to make them not sabotage themselves.

Some of the tricks she pulls are rather clever, such as the party with all the foreign dignitaries. Some are just petty, like the trumpet, but still amusing. She's definitely crazy enough that it's not at all obvious what she's going to try next.

But then we get the backstory, where we see her responding with disproportionate cruelty to small children, and I lost any sympathy I had for her. There's a big, big difference between forcing a prince to do the work he should've been doing in the first place (or annoying him with petty tricks like decorating her cell or playing a trumpet late at night) and throwing rocks at a small kid who's having issues swimming so he can't get to shore.

Alexandra is equally bad: "Someday, he'll realize that the cynical way I treat him is just my way of shyly hiding my affection." No, I'm actually on George's side here. If she's this bad to him, it's completely unreasonable to expect "but I actually LIKE you!" to make up for all the horrible things she put him through.

Anyway. I'm not sure if I'll read any continuing books or not. This was fun, and then the ending was just way, way too much for me. When it turns into this level of child abuse, it isn't funny anymore, and that retroactively soured me on the entire book. I rate this book Neutral.

See my reviews and more at https://offtheshelfreviews.wordpress....
Profile Image for Bethany.
875 reviews20 followers
May 5, 2022
It started off interesting but I quickly found myself becoming bored. about a third of the way through.
For the most part if felt repetitive and redundant. Perhaps I would have enjoyed this more in manga form? I don't know.
The characters were overall fairly boring. Rachel, Elliot, George, etc. The only ones who were remotely interesting were the parents. Luckily they weren't on screen for very long otherwise they probably would have been boring as well. The maids were okay but by the time their side story showed up I was reading simply to finish.
Which is kind of sad. It started out so well.
I didn't care for the ending. I guess it was meant to be a bit of a cliffhanger, but I'm not lamenting over the fact the second volume isn't available yet. And when it is I doubt I'll pick it up to finish the series.
Honestly it's been only a few minutes since I've finished this book. and Rachel's name was changed to Rebecca in my head for some reason. I had to look at the book synopsis to make sure the names I listed were correct. Rachel could have been an interesting villainess but nah. I doubt I'll remember her overly much later. Right now I'm wondering if I can return the book.

So recommended? Really only up until she's thrown into prison and maybe a few chapters after that otherwise not so much.
Buy/Borrow? Borrow
Profile Image for Sammie.
303 reviews
July 7, 2022
This was insanely funny, literally. It starts off like a normal 'villainess' type story with the main character, Rachel being wrongly accused by her fiance the crown prince, and sentenced to prison. Rachel is absolutely thrilled as she can finely live the hedonistic shut-in lifestyle she's always wanted. Prison Elliot is infuriated with her response and goes out of his way to antagonize her while she is in prison, only to be bested time and time again to our hilarity.

The author of this book very cleverly straddles the fine line between insane and ingenious when crafting his characters. Rachel is one of the most interesting villainesses/main characters I've ever encountered. She has more power and connections than the king and very easily jerks the crown prince around like a plaything. It's so funny how even while in prison she manages to enjoy all the finer things in life, much to the dismay of Prince Elliot and his posse.

Most of the story is narrated from the perspective of Rachel and Prince Elliot but you can also read the views of the secondary characters so it doesn't get old. The comedy in this is grim, ludicrous, and utterly laugh out loud. I highly recommend it.
1,802 reviews
December 3, 2024
Super funny at times, but it also descends into over the top stupidity occasionally. Rachel is hilariously unapologetic about her behavior, and has set up the dungeon as her personal kingdom. Elliot is far too stupid to get one over on her, as is everyone else…

Her parents are quite concerned about her being a possible psychopath, and have already lit a candle for George. I don’t think she actually comes across as a psycho most of the time - like it described her as being calm and emotionless when she tried to drown the prince (did he forget that??) but actually she seems to find a lot of enjoyment in life and be fairly expressive. Yet somehow George missed her scary side.

Anyway, the dumb parts are things like how the duke talks to the king, why they would let Elliot be in charge of anything when they know he’s dumb, and the disturbing things George has done over the years…and what Rachel did to him.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Pieter.
1,276 reviews19 followers
March 7, 2022
Rachel is the fiancé of the prince. She supposedly bullied Margaret her rival in "love" and is thrown in jail by the prince and his cronies. The start sounds very much like other books in the genre, but you quickly learn things are different. Rachel was very much aware of the plot, and she prepared herself so that the stay in jail would be more like a holiday while giving her an opportunity to harass her dumb fiancé.

The resulting story is a fun read with interesting twists to the tropes. The main character is very much a villainess, the cold calculating type with a sadistic streak, who did some horrible stuff as a kid. The characters and story are a bit simple, but since it is apparently going to be a short series for me that is not much of an issue.

All in all, an entertaining read, not as hilarious as other satire on the genre, but for me well worth the read.
Profile Image for Aria.
76 reviews2 followers
March 1, 2023
Crown Prince Elliot does not want Rachel Ferguson to be his wife, so he throws her into the dungeon. Little does he know...she doesn't want to be Queen either, so she'd rather stay in! A comedy villainess title that doesn't make any realistic sense at all, so you really have to suspend your disbelief and take it as it is. Rachel definitely deserves her villainess title but Elliot and his associates aren't any better so really, who should we be rooting for? This first volume is definitely better than the second though, I have no idea why they decided to wrap up things this way. But yeah if you want a silly, low-stakes, ridiculous read like I did then this just might not let you down.

Originally posted on Instagram.
30 reviews
June 10, 2024
DNF'd at about 35%. Extremely boring.

I do enjoy an underdog punishing the oppressor in creative ways. Problem is, nothing here was creative. The main character had an extreme plot armor. She also, apparently, time travelled, putting everything she would think of later into her supplies.

Personally, I kept wishing for anybody to just throw a few buckets of water through the dungeon windows, or maybe pee into them.

When she finished a book in, as the narrative put it, “a few days”, it was bad. When it was revealed that she finished five books instead, it was beyond ridiculous. It became obvious the whole story is a power trip. I won't be surprised if all the mean characters are based on real people that the author wanted to exact petty revenge on.
Profile Image for D.
320 reviews11 followers
February 4, 2023
I was honestly really enjoying this book right until the end. It's funny and I love the idea of a genius getting revenge while being lazy. However there is basically a rape/molestation scene at the very end. The MC, as a 4 year old, inserted a firecracker into her 3 year old brother's butt. Plus she lit it. I just don't think that's funny, amusing, or anything pleasant to think about. For anyone reading this and feeling worried about it, the brother is still alive and doing okay. The only reason I rated this 3 stars is because this might not bother other people as much as it bothers me.
Profile Image for Hawke.
27 reviews
Read
March 21, 2022
A Fun read

I remember reading the fan translation of this novel several years ago. It was one of my first and lead me into the spiral of light novels I enjoy today.

I am glad j-novel club finally officially licensed and translated this novel (with such an excellent translation might I add considering recent drama with other localisation groups) so I can support the author. I will happily preorder the manga if they get the licence even if it remains incomplete.

Profile Image for MV.
143 reviews27 followers
July 25, 2022
I had a ton of fun reading this! If you're looking for depth, character development, or something more serious, this isn't for you.

But if you want over the top, ridiculous, hilarious antics where one person (Rachel) is constantly needling and besting the idiots around her from her prison cell, then this is it. Unlike most light novels with the villainess trope, Rachel is a certified psycho, which makes this all the more fun.
Profile Image for Miss Susan.
2,768 reviews65 followers
March 4, 2023
i was very surprised when i saw this was licensed now but not displeased! read some of this back when it was a fan translation i found on novelupdates. it's basically humor and face slapping -- i do think it's a bit unique in that rachel legitimately is a villainess and happy to lean into the role lol. enjoy your easy prison life ma'am!

3 stars
Profile Image for Wicked Empress.
21 reviews
April 15, 2021
Well i would have given a better rating if it was shorter. It starts of really well the first 20 chapters are funny and easy to read. But after that it starts to become repetitive and since nothing of value happens in any chapter it was hard to keep reading... for me at least
Profile Image for Encanto  Atelier.
104 reviews2 followers
January 8, 2022
This was a quick read. It was engaging at first but I want another chapter for a better ending.
I want her to end up with some kinda prince that is her equal. A feared leader would be pretty cool.

Over all great story.
Clean read
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