Tuesday, February 27, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Heroine Worship (Heroine Complex #2) by Sarah Kuhn







  Heroine Worship is the second book in Sarah Kuhn's "Heroine" series, following her "Heroine Complex" which I reviewed earlier this year.  I loved Heroine Complex - it was one of the most maybe "pure" fun books I've read in a long time, with some fun characters and romance (also, lots of sex).  So it's only due to the fact that I had other library books out that it took me this long to get to Heroine Worship.  And the book doesn't disappoint - like it's predecessor it's incredibly fun, even if it's probably just a bit behind the first book for me.  

  The Heroine books have so far followed two Asian-American superheroes - Evie Tanaka and Annie "Aveda Jupiter" Chang in a San Francisco which has suffered occasional invasions from mysterious demons.  The two are very different in personality - Aveda is pushy and determined while Evie has a tendency to be passive and let others roll her over.  They're aided by their team of friends - bodyguard Lucy, Evie's bubbly but smart sister Bea, scientist Nate, and mage Scott.  Together they make a team that is incredibly fun - if you're looking for a dark tone, you're looking in the wrong place.  But if you're looking for something light, this is a great place to find yourself.

Note: You could in theory read this book as a stand alone, but you'll probably be a bit confused at the beginning, and since Heroine Complex is so damn fantastic, don't start with this book.  

More after the jump (spoilers for Heroine Complex are inevitable, but they shouldn't hugely impact your enjoyment of that novel):



----------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------
After the events of Heroine Complex, things have calmed down around San Francisco - the demon portal in the floor of the shop remains but nothing has come out of it and there have been no demon attacks in the months that have passed.  This has driven Aveda Jupiter (real name Annie Chang) crazy - she's trying to be a better friend to Evie (as she knows she was a real jerk) but can't help but feel unneeded without any superheroing to do.  It doesn't help that her mother still seems to treat her as a disappointment.  And then there's Scott, the team's mage, who Aveda/Annie has had a crush on forever, but who is acting weirdly coldly toward Aveda recently.  

And then, after an attack from the portal, Nate proposes to Evie, and Evie appoints Aveda to be the maid of honor at the wedding in just a few months.  To Aveda this is great news: It means she has a purpose again for her drive, to make Evie the BEST WEDDING EVER.  But this also means working with her longtime crush (though she won't admit this to herself) Scott as the best man, meaning more contact with him.  

But when an invisible demon begins affecting the brides of San Francisco, making them go into crazy rages, it seems as if Wedding planning is going to be far more difficult than planned.  And Aveda and Evie have very different ideas about what Evie's wedding should look like - can Aveda perform her responsibilities as the Maid of Honor without ruining Evie's wedding?  Or will all of these happenings - her attempt to be a better friend, to put on a great wedding for Evie, to try and deal with Scott, her parents, and oh yeah - the demon-induced Bridezilla problem - cause Aveda/Annie an identity crisis that will totally unravel her?  
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Heroine Worship flips the point of view of the story to that of Aveda/Annie (from Evie in the first book).  As readers of book 1 will know - Aveda/Annie is very different from Evie - whereas Evie's problem was letting people walk over her, Aveda refuses to not walk over others seemingly in her way.  But the two characters are also similar - Aveda also suffers from big time anxiety issues over her self worth, and her outwards confidence is largely a sham she puts up so others won't ever think her weak.  And the situation after the first book has given Aveda a kind of identity crisis - her response to her anxiety has always been to pretend supreme confidence and to deny any sort of weakness, but she can't help but feel weak in a world where she suddenly seems completely unneeded and maybe unwanted (in her own mind).  Again, like in the first book, the author does an incredible job making a character who could've seemed one note in other hands be three dimensional, and she's an excellent protagonist.  

Lest the words "identity crisis" above make you think this is in any way a dark-toned book, make sure you note that the big external threat in this book are demon-inspired bridezillas.  So yeah, Heroine Worship keeps up the fun that drives this series.  We're dealing with bridezillas and possessed wedding dresses here, hardly the stuff of darkness.  Oh and every so often, we have interludes of Bea making reports about the demon encounters, and well, a bubbly 17 year old making reports of demon encounters is as silly as it sounds.  And like in Heroine Complex, the book doesn't usually (see below) let its characters wallow in misery that can be resolved by simply talking a situation out which remains incredibly refreshing.

The one kind of exception to this is the relation between Aveda and Scott - their inability to talk things over does result in a long delayed romance.  I'm not spoiling anything to say this is the romance of this book, as any reader of Book 1 and of the beginning of this book will be waiting for the two of them to finally get together.  It takes a lot longer time than Nate and Evie did in book 1, and I was a bit frustrated about Aveda's insecurities causing this (although it DOES fit in character).  It's not quite as good a romance as Evie/Nate, but it's still fun and believable.  

The one character I oddly wasn't sure worked was - oddly enough - book 1's protagonist, Evie.  It's possible this is simply the result of no longer being in Evie's head, but she felt kind of like a different character than the woman from the end of Book 1 - while she still has the habit of being rolled over by others, her dialogue is almost way too confident at times (the dialogue where Evie and Aveda hash out some of their problems 75% of the way through doesn't feel like Evie at all).  I don't know how to describe this better, and it's very possible it's just from not being in Evie's head as she talks.  But really this is at most a minor problem of dissonance and not a problem with the book.

More problematic - and I want to stress that I really enjoyed this book before it sounds like I'm harping too much on problems - is the subplot of Annie/Aveda having to deal with her disapproving parents, particularly her mother.  Sure it fits the characters, but the whole plotline felt very cliche (which I know was part of the point).  

The other problem with this book is that well...it's very very predictable, especially to readers of book 1.  You'll guess who the mystery antagonist is really really early because it's a similar revelation to Book 1's, and even the book's whole structure, with the exception of the sex starting up a bit later, follows the first book's very very closely.  So while I enjoyed being with this cast of characters again, I kind of wanted more and something a little different this time.  The end result is that this is a bit below Heroine Complex for me, just because Complex exists and did it a little bit better.  

Still, I love this series as a whole, and if you want a series with pure fun, I strongly recommend it.  
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