Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn

Heroine Complex (Heroine Complex, #1)

by Sarah Kuhn

Asian American superheroines Evie Tanaka and Aveda Jupiter protect San Francisco from perilous threats in the first book in this snarky and smart urban fantasy series

Being a superheroine is hard. Working for one is even harder.

Evie Tanaka is the put-upon personal assistant to Aveda Jupiter, her childhood best friend and San Francisco’s most beloved superheroine. She’s great at her job—blending into the background, handling her boss’s epic diva tantrums, and getting demon blood out of leather pants.

Unfortunately, she’s not nearly as together when it comes to running her own life, standing up for herself, or raising her tempestuous teenage sister, Bea.

But everything changes when Evie’s forced to pose as her glamorous boss for one night, and her darkest secret comes out: she has powers, too. Now it’s up to her to contend with murderous cupcakes, nosy gossip bloggers, and supernatural karaoke battles—all while juggling unexpected romance and Aveda’s increasingly outrageous demands. And when a larger threat emerges, Evie must finally take charge and become a superheroine in her own right...or see her city fall to a full-on demonic invasion.

Reviewed by empressbrooke on

2 of 5 stars

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I found this one when io9 raved about it, but at 30% through I was not sharing their love for it. The writing style is annoyingly perky, and the characters have ridiculous isn't-that-so-cute quirks (the main character apparently eats only Lucky Charms for every meal). The infodumpy conversations are unnatural (imagine turning to your coworker and loudly saying, "So, fellow co-worker who I have worked alongside for the last 5 years, can you please remind me how we do this task that we do regularly?"). There's a scene where the main character is eavesdropping on villain-y types monologuing about their motivations and evil plans, and it was so stilted and awkward.

At the 60% mark I found myself not believing in Aveda and Evie's supposed friendship, at ALL. There are lots of anecdotes that Evie shares about how Aveda was a great friend in the past, but all of their interactions in the present time make Aveda seem like such an unpleasant, selfish asshole. Their friends stage an intervention to discuss the destructive nature of Aveda and Evie's bickering, and only Evie apologizes, while Aveda stands by silently, and no one seemed to think this was bitchy.

The plot had a number of points that didn't make sense. For example, they fight demons for a living, but for some reason when Evie sees a demon when she's by herself, everyone chalks it up to a hallucination without any good reason given for this assumption.

The characters are either bland or sloppy - Lucy doesn't seem to have a personality except for calling everyone "Love" or "Darling" every other sentence, and Evie's little sister goes through about three different personalities as the plot requires it.

Urban fantasy can be done very well (ie - [a:Kelley Armstrong|7581|Kelley Armstrong|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1199068298p2/7581.jpg]'s [b:Bitten|7492609|Bitten (Women of the Otherworld, #1)|Kelley Armstrong|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1349858727s/7492609.jpg|2606334] and [b:Stolen|11922|Stolen (Women of the Otherworld, #2)|Kelley Armstrong|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1300923278s/11922.jpg|14289], [a:Richelle Mead|137902|Richelle Mead|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1270374609p2/137902.jpg]'s Vampire Academy series), or it can be pretty painful (the rest of Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series, Mead's Bloodlines series). Heroine Complex unfortunately falls into the latter category. I had really expected to enjoy it, but ultimately found the writing entirely unconvincing.

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  • Started reading
  • 30 July, 2016: Finished reading
  • 30 July, 2016: Reviewed