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yayforbooks's review
5.0
AMAZING!
Currently road tripping so this will be short, but I am so happy I decided to read this set of stories. I grew up with Sailor Moon and magical girl stories. I liked that in this book, the magical girls were growing up and dealing with young adult stuff and all the emotions that are normal and kind of finding/affirming their own identities. SO MANY FEELINGS
Currently road tripping so this will be short, but I am so happy I decided to read this set of stories. I grew up with Sailor Moon and magical girl stories. I liked that in this book, the magical girls were growing up and dealing with young adult stuff and all the emotions that are normal and kind of finding/affirming their own identities. SO MANY FEELINGS
cloudslikethis's review
4.0
Gritty magical girl stories are my fave. I loved everything about this but think the writing could’ve been a bit tighter, there were quite a few typos and the transitions into flashbacks were kinda sharp. But really great reflections on growing up as a woman, gaining new powers, and maintaining friendships.
lizshayne's review
3.0
(Kindle copy needs better copy editing and you can tell it's bad if *I* noticed.)
That out of the way, I'm really enjoying the upsurge of superhero narratives in book form that ask all these interesting questions about saving the world and what it means to be chosen and to fight. Yap's book is less interrogative than some of the others that have come out the Book Smugglers' initiative: she's not interested in the moral complexity of super powers or in the way that good and evil are handled, she cares more about what being a girl battling the forces of darkness does to a person. Well, a team of people. In schoolgirl outfits and heels. But she's explicit about taking her cues from the magical girls who populate manga and anime. Yap is another example of using fun and fluffy ideas--magical girls and one of them is getting married!--to write fun and fluffy books that also add depth to these larger narratives of superheros and saviors that populate (in particular) visual media. Prose invites a certain kind of interiority and Yap takes advantage of that approach to give the characters more time and space to worry and struggle with who they are.
The downside is that magical girls fighting monsters does not translate perfectly to prose and some of the action scenes would work much better in another medium. Basically, someone make this into a graphic novel while preserving the inner thoughts and illustrating the fight scenes. Win/win.
That out of the way, I'm really enjoying the upsurge of superhero narratives in book form that ask all these interesting questions about saving the world and what it means to be chosen and to fight. Yap's book is less interrogative than some of the others that have come out the Book Smugglers' initiative: she's not interested in the moral complexity of super powers or in the way that good and evil are handled, she cares more about what being a girl battling the forces of darkness does to a person. Well, a team of people. In schoolgirl outfits and heels. But she's explicit about taking her cues from the magical girls who populate manga and anime. Yap is another example of using fun and fluffy ideas--magical girls and one of them is getting married!--to write fun and fluffy books that also add depth to these larger narratives of superheros and saviors that populate (in particular) visual media. Prose invites a certain kind of interiority and Yap takes advantage of that approach to give the characters more time and space to worry and struggle with who they are.
The downside is that magical girls fighting monsters does not translate perfectly to prose and some of the action scenes would work much better in another medium. Basically, someone make this into a graphic novel while preserving the inner thoughts and illustrating the fight scenes. Win/win.
amcgeewrites's review
4.0
So Book Smugglers hooked me up with an ARC of Hurricane Heels by Isabel Yap, and I have to say I really enjoyed it. If you’re into a dark re-imagining of Sailor Moon with great representation of POC and LGBTQ folks, this is the book for you. Prepare yourself for a lot of wedding talk, bachelorette parties, and monster guts.
The concept behind this book is pretty straightforward at first blush. It is a “magical girl” novel, following tropes of the anime genre that gave rise to such classics as Sailor Moon and Madoka Magica. That said, this is not a fluffy book. There are some serious moral questions raised about the prospect of being a child, as these girls generally are, gifted with powers and expected to fight unnameable evils, risking their lives for the good of humankind and some nebulous promise of victory. There’s also some good delving into PTSD and the psychological pressure associated with a life of endless battles.
The book follows five girls who have all been selected to fight evils called Greystones. Like an RPG, each Greystone releases a glass heart, which contains energy that allows their divine benefactor, the goddess (otherwise unnamed) to gain power. The story takes place primarily in the weeks leading up to the wedding of one of the five, Selena. Simultaneous flashbacks show the group’s history together, building their characters and making you care about them. Yap manages the timelines adeptly in each chapter, building a whole out of fragmented moments. The structure of this book actually reminded me of Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes Seanan McGuire’s work.
In addition, the book references its anime inspiration with some great drawings of the viewpoint characters at the beginning of each chapter. My only wish was for a drawing of all of the girls together at the beginning, since it would have helped me to keep them apart in my head better. I found the earliest chapter hard to follow as I assigned names to personalities and histories, but I don’t know if that was due to me reading it on my phone (quite possible). The cover does show all of them together, so that helps, but I didn't get to see the cover until after I read the book!
goodbyepuckpie's review
4.0
(I forget who recced this, so apologies for not tipping my hat yr way.) This has a really great range of characters (we get a pov section from each) and is an interesting take on the Magical Girls trope/how that interacts with growing up.
I think I was expecting a little more of the romance between two of the girls than we actually got in the book, but the balance of detail with all the characters and their relationships was very even throughout so that wasn't anything the book promised without delivering. I think it's closer to a 3.5 stars for me, really, but I hit the ending with a lot more feelings than I expected so I'm erring on the side of rounding up.
The ebook version I bought has some issues - a section repeats by mistake (nothing appeared to be missing) and a few typoes, so fair warning on that. I did find the frequent time jumps a little confusing at some points - there's a parallel narrative of about 4 'chunks' of time that cycles through, and I feel like some formatting to delineate that rather than just an extra line of empty space would have made that work better.
content note: warning for very briefly described memories of domestic violence in one character's backstory; attempted assault on that same character (she saves herself from it); action-movie level violence throughout in the battles with monsters.
I think I was expecting a little more of the romance between two of the girls than we actually got in the book, but the balance of detail with all the characters and their relationships was very even throughout so that wasn't anything the book promised without delivering. I think it's closer to a 3.5 stars for me, really, but I hit the ending with a lot more feelings than I expected so I'm erring on the side of rounding up.
The ebook version I bought has some issues - a section repeats by mistake (nothing appeared to be missing) and a few typoes, so fair warning on that. I did find the frequent time jumps a little confusing at some points - there's a parallel narrative of about 4 'chunks' of time that cycles through, and I feel like some formatting to delineate that rather than just an extra line of empty space would have made that work better.
content note: warning for very briefly described memories of domestic violence in one character's backstory; attempted assault on that same character (she saves herself from it); action-movie level violence throughout in the battles with monsters.
ranaelizabeth's review
5.0
Absolutely fucking brilliant. On the surface, it's just a regular story about girls fighting monsters. But it's really about the transformative power of friendship and knowing one's self. We are all magic girls, with the power to fight evil.
This is also perfectly diverse, in that it is diverse without calling attention to it. It's just no big fucking deal. Amen.
This is also perfectly diverse, in that it is diverse without calling attention to it. It's just no big fucking deal. Amen.
emeraldreverie's review
5.0
Excellent magical girl with realistic stakes. I love how the relationship between all five unfolds so well in the different stories.
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