Reviews

Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn

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twasbrillig's review

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5.0

This book was just so. much. FUN.

okevamae's review

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3.0

I badly wanted to give this one four stars - asian superheroines! A diverse cast of fun characters! A cute romance! - but there were parts of it that just didn't hang together for me. The plot was kind of overstuffed in that way that first novels often are, like the author just kept cramming ideas in, and it all got a little messily convoluted towards the end there. There were too many threads and when they were all pulled together it didn't quite fit. And I felt like there were some major points that should have foreshadowed a little more, because they seemed to come out of nowhere.

All that being said - I really did enjoy the book! I loved all the characters and the family atmosphere of the group. Evie and Nate were cute together, and once Aveda got down off her high horse I really enjoyed her scenes with Evie. I definitely liked it enough to pick up the next in the series.

bumblemee's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

first of all: i love the cover! it's has great colors, it's dynamic and very fun to look at, love it! <3

other than that, i have mixed feelings on this one. i liked how funny it was and how there's some rep for asian american superheroines that are quite badass - very cool! i also enjoyed the romance aspect, i think they are very cute together and i felt the chemistry between them.
the writing style was fitting for a superhero story, it felt like the novel version of a comic.
still, this book didn't grip my attention enough. maybe i expected the wrong things from it. for example, i thought it would feel more fast paced. but while there's certainly something happening all of the time, it still felt weirdly slowed down, which made it drag on for too long for my taste. also because of the focus put on the character relationships, i felt like the plot suffered a bit. the tension didn't get through to me, i simply accepted everything that was happening and didn't feel surprised by the plot twists, even though i didn't see everything coming. that was a weird experience and i can't really explain it. maybe it had something to do with me feeling like the way they figured things out wasn't done in an exciting way, which might be because the author already tried to handle a lot of character development for a lot of people at the same time.

oh, and there were things that i found a weird choice - for example i was confused why they thought that "anger shatters field" was evie? because why on earth wouldn't her stone have something to do with fire? eventhough she uses emotions to fuel the fire, the fire is the most obvious thing about her powers and they probably had a lot of stones they couldn't tie to a person since it was explained that there were a lot of people with minor powers. idk, this isn't a big thing, but somehow it still threw me off a bit.

he character arcs made sense to me, especially evie and aveda and i think they were well done. however, other characters like bea felt soooo random. yes, she is a teenager, but some of her decisions were too bad even for a teenage girl, my god.
oh, and i liked nate a lot, but for his role of being the smart one he sometimes wasn't that smart?

like .. he's the son of a demon princess, but he can't piece together that some of the stones resemble the powers of people, despite it being quite obvious? especially the gps tracking thing? he explained it with his extreme attention to detail, but still ... idk man

all in all i would recommend this book since it does have a lot of fun things going for it, even if it wasn't really my jam.. but honestly, i could imagine that i would've liked it better if i listened to it via audiobook, since the parts i thought of as dragging probably woudn't have felt as dragging.

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