Monday, October 18, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Hollywood Heroine by Sarah Kuhn

 




Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on October 26, 2021 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

Hollywood Heroine is the fifth novel (and sixth story) in Sarah Kuhn's "Heroine" series (which began with Heroine Complex - My Review Here).  If you're unfamiliar with the series - and you shouldn't be, it's awesome - it's a really fun series featuring Asian-American superheroes, who have to deal with their own anxieties, romances, relationships and....demons who take really silly forms, like cupcakes or unicorns.  The first three books in the series (and the bridge novella) formed a trilogy which introduced each of the series' main heroines and their personalities, and Hollywood Heroine is the second book in a new trilogy returning to each heroine in turn to follow up on their adventures, their relationships, and their paths going forward.  I didn't quite love the first of this new trilogy, Haunted Heroine (Reviewed Here), finding it was a bit duplicative of the prior character work, but it was still fun, so I was super excited to get an advanced copy of this follow-up.  

And Hollywood Heroine is pretty much everything I could hope for as a new novel in this series.  The story switches back to following Aveda, the bludgeoning force for good, whose original book in Heroine Worship (Review Here) featured her struggling with no longer being the only superheroine and with her feelings towards her best friend Evie, bludgeoning her way through planning Evie's wedding, and dealing with her childhood love, the magic-wielding Scott.  Now, Aveda is comfortable being a co-heroine, but of course she's still a bulldozer (that'll never fully change), and so when she has to deal with anxieties like people leaving her, a new city to explore (LA) with racist white people, and her passive aggressive mother....well things go awry.  Add in more supernatural stuff around Hollywood, and some really fun dialogue and situations (Vampires!), and well this is another clear winner.  

----------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------------
There was a time that Aveda Jupiter would've loved the idea of her life being immortalized in a Hollywood TV Show.  But the time of Aveda Jupiter caring about being special and famous is mostly over.  Now Aveda cares most about her super family - her best friend and fellow superheroine Evie, her employee and friend Lucy, Evie's younger sister (and also superpowered) Bea, and of course....her magic-wielding childhood love, and now husband Scott.  But to her great fear, the family seems to be splitting apart - Bea has moved to Hawaii, Lucy has moved out of their complex, and Evie is talking about vacation and less about actual superheroine-ing, especially after Evie's baby is born. 

So Aveda has a hard time caring too much when she, Evie, Scott and one of their new interns head down to LA to consult on their TV Show - "Heroine".  But when Aveda sees that the show is being director by a white man blowhard with a bizarre vampire theme - she gets outraged all the same....with that outrage only heightened when the stars of the show are attacked by a vampire-playing actor and the director doesn't seem to care.  

Soon Aveda is in full-on Aveda Jupiter bludgeon mode, trying to figure out what's going on and to make sure things are set right...but is she really doing any good in doing so when no one else seems to care and everything else seems to be falling apart around her?  And if it is all falling apart, what will she be able to do when she's confronted with another demon attack?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quick Disclaimer before I go further in this review: I talk mostly about the emotional and character development in this book (which is terrific) below, because it's what makes this series special, but I realized after writing the below that I didn't emphasize the fact that this is still a really fun book with fun quotable dialogue, San-Fran based Asian American superheroines taking a trip to see Hollywood where they wind up fighting the supernatural, and well just a lot of fun situations and moments.  The below is in no way mean to suggest this fun series gets anyway serious and maudlin on you.....ahem, now back to the review:

The Heroine series has a formula of sorts - each book follows one character from their perspective as they deal not only with supernatural attacks, but also events that provoke their own anxieties and make them struggle with their relationships, before events get to the point where the protagonist talks it out with one of the others (if not more) and grows emotionally stronger as a result - oh and grows romantically and sexually attached to someone else in the meantime too (the series generally has a fun sex scene or two in its plots).  The last book in the series, Haunted Heroine, didn't quite work as well as the others for me because it felt like the emotional struggle of its heroine Evie was one we'd seen her grapple with before in the prior books.  It was still a lot of fun, but when the emotional conflict at the heart of the book felt a bit redundant, it was a minor letdown.  

Not the case for Hollywood Heroine, where Aveda's emotional conflict feels like a natural extension of all the things that have happened since her last time in the spotlight in Heroine Worship.  In that book, she struggled to still feel needed since she felt Evie was a better superheroine, and her bludgeon-like drive was set to proving that she could be the best Maid of Honor possible for Evie to show she was still of value in their friendship - before Evie and Aveda finally sat down and realized their friendship was more than about their own individual worth (not that either of them was less of a superheroine than the other), and Aveda managed to conquer her own insecurities about being second choice to get together with Scott, the boy she'd loved since she was a kid.  And since that book, Aveda remains a bludgeon (for good!) in her eagerness to always be doing something...but she listens a bit more and tries to channel it to helping the family she's really come to love.  

So of course, with that family changing, and becoming more geographically spread out, of course Aveda was going to struggle, as she does here.  And of course the idea of Evie talking about going away from superheroine-ing was going to scare her.  And then there's the idea that Scott, her beloved husband, won't chase after his own dreams because he was simply letting her bludgeon him - something she remembers once doing to Evie.  And there's her lifelong feeling that she needs to be perfect, or else those who love her will throw their support behind a mediocre "All-American" (re: White) girl instead - meaning she can't possibly ever let show any weakness.  Aveda is a superheroine who absolutely cares, and who wants to do good and solve everyone's problems....so of course all these anxieties only drive her further into problem solving bludgeon mode even more, to the extent that she starts neglecting her own care, and starts harming those others she's trying to help in the process.  

Obviously, she's helped out of this mindset by others, although exactly by who is a very big surprise, and the book's resolution scenes for Aveda and her anxieties, for her relationship with Scott (sexy bathtime scene!), and for her other found-family members are really great as usual.  And again, Aveda remains really fun, as she deals with not only demons and vampires in this book, but racist assholes - those of the obvious variety and those of the extreme passive-aggressive microaggression variety - who only harp on those anxieties she has otherwise.  Again, I don't want to suggest by the way that this is some super serious book by the way - even though we deal with personal demons, with relationships and the series' classic theme of talking and listening it out, and with racist and sexist behaviors - this is still an incredibly fun book with a really great set of characters - from the actresses Aveda and co meet, to Aveda's intern Pippa from the last book (who has her own emotional arc).  

Like if I was to complain, the book is perhaps a bit too long and takes a bit too long in getting to the emotional climax, and you'll spot the real evil mastermind incredibly early, but honestly this is still a book with vampire demons who prey on emotions, of superheroines researching paranormal romance novels for clues, of found families and emotional connections that turn out for the best, and of a bulldozing heroine who will, once she realizes she has the support of all her friends and family, once again be a bludgeon for good....with nothing getting in her way.  

Yep, I love this series.  And if you haven't been reading it yet, you should, because I bet you will too.  

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)