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A review by alice_digest
Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines
4.0
I stumbled across this book when I was cruising Amazon one day. Superheroes and zombies? How could I resist that? It was guaranteed to be awesome fun or really, really terrible. Luckily it was the former! It's pure trashy entertainment, and if that's all you are expecting from it then you won't be disappointed. I always try to rate on a scale of pure enjoyment rather than necessary "worthiness" .. and for just being a really fun read it gets 4 stars, despite its faults.
There is a quotation on the back describing it as The Walking Dead meets The Avengers, and honestly that is exactly what this book is (but so much more fun than The Walking Dead is)! There was an outbreak of a zombie plague that over ran the population, leaving on a few pockets of survivors.. standard zombie stuff. The zombies are actually referred to as "exes" which actually does help to make it feel a little fresher. However in this world there are also a people with super powers, who had been acting as vigilante heroes for a few years before the plague. They have banded together to help protect the survivors from whatever threats they might all face.
I honestly loved this book. It's a proper guilty pleasure. There are a good range of heroes with a range of superpowers, some more useful than others. St George is probably the most awesome as he is impervious to almost everything, super strong, he can fly and he can breathe fire! I was a big fan of Zzzap too. I thought Gorgon's powers were also interesting, and he had a nice darker edge to him next to the squeaky clean St George.
It is worth noting that this book is 100% an adolescent boy's dream. At the end of the book the authors notes that this novel was born out of conversation with friends in school, and you can tell.. and I'm not sure he ever grew up! For what it is I'm not upset with it for that. Of course it means that a lot of the women are hypersexualised.. particularly Stealth! I did like her, I thought she was an awesome character but.. there were A LOT of descriptions of how hot she is. And she wears a mask to hide her face because she is SO PRETTY that people never take get seriously. Some of this I can perhaps (perhaps) rationalise (a little bit). The majority of descriptions of her hotness comes from St George chapters (not all but most). It does serve to remind us that St George is in fact human and not boring far too perfect saintly guy. He has impure thoughts! He also has casual sex with another female character in which we get a nice description of her bra too. It's thin defence but I tried.
Now as for Stealth's costume I remained a little baffled as too why, if she was so sick of being objectified, she would choose to dress in a latex suit with belts and straps in all the right places! It was never stated anywhere, but I assume that as a "stealth" character she finds her hot body a useful distraction. She is constantly objectified.. but she isn't a sexual character. She has a bisexual past, which she mentions in a very logical and cold was (sex had as useful function) but comes across to me as a now existed as asexual. I have a feeling that might change in future books.. I was be disappointed though.
The are other women in the novel too, and while they are more sexualised than then male characters it's not to the extent of Stealth. I would say there are more descriptions of dead female exes than the male ones.. at one point he does describe the blood dripping between the breasts of one. Gross. This is problematic but.. the novel was just so much fun I honestly didn't care that much. When I was reading this, and talking about it now, it does read like a comic book. Like a graphic novel turned into text. It's an unavoidable truth that over sexualised females are a trope of comic books, so I guess it plays into the very visual style Clines is going for.
Still, Cerberus was another of my favourites, and while being a giant robotic suit of hardcore armour it is piloted by a woman. She managed to escape without any descriptions of her body parts that I can remember, and she's both super smart and completely badass. So not all hope is lost.
It's not perfect.. but I didn't expect it to be.. and I don't particularly need it to be! This is a guilty read. It's pure fun. There are a lot of action scenes are they're brilliantly written. The characters are also well-formed, and distinctive. The plot is crazy. If you like superheroes and you like zombies.. give it a read.
I loved it. Maybe I shouldn't have but I did. It's better than I ever expected it to be.. and I cannot wait to read Ex Patriots!
There is a quotation on the back describing it as The Walking Dead meets The Avengers, and honestly that is exactly what this book is (but so much more fun than The Walking Dead is)! There was an outbreak of a zombie plague that over ran the population, leaving on a few pockets of survivors.. standard zombie stuff. The zombies are actually referred to as "exes" which actually does help to make it feel a little fresher. However in this world there are also a people with super powers, who had been acting as vigilante heroes for a few years before the plague. They have banded together to help protect the survivors from whatever threats they might all face.
I honestly loved this book. It's a proper guilty pleasure. There are a good range of heroes with a range of superpowers, some more useful than others. St George is probably the most awesome as he is impervious to almost everything, super strong, he can fly and he can breathe fire! I was a big fan of Zzzap too. I thought Gorgon's powers were also interesting, and he had a nice darker edge to him next to the squeaky clean St George.
It is worth noting that this book is 100% an adolescent boy's dream. At the end of the book the authors notes that this novel was born out of conversation with friends in school, and you can tell.. and I'm not sure he ever grew up! For what it is I'm not upset with it for that. Of course it means that a lot of the women are hypersexualised.. particularly Stealth! I did like her, I thought she was an awesome character but.. there were A LOT of descriptions of how hot she is. And she wears a mask to hide her face because she is SO PRETTY that people never take get seriously. Some of this I can perhaps (perhaps) rationalise (a little bit). The majority of descriptions of her hotness comes from St George chapters (not all but most). It does serve to remind us that St George is in fact human and not boring far too perfect saintly guy. He has impure thoughts! He also has casual sex with another female character in which we get a nice description of her bra too. It's thin defence but I tried.
Now as for Stealth's costume I remained a little baffled as too why, if she was so sick of being objectified, she would choose to dress in a latex suit with belts and straps in all the right places! It was never stated anywhere, but I assume that as a "stealth" character she finds her hot body a useful distraction. She is constantly objectified.. but she isn't a sexual character. She has a bisexual past, which she mentions in a very logical and cold was (sex had as useful function) but comes across to me as a now existed as asexual. I have a feeling that might change in future books.. I was be disappointed though.
The are other women in the novel too, and while they are more sexualised than then male characters it's not to the extent of Stealth. I would say there are more descriptions of dead female exes than the male ones.. at one point he does describe the blood dripping between the breasts of one. Gross. This is problematic but.. the novel was just so much fun I honestly didn't care that much. When I was reading this, and talking about it now, it does read like a comic book. Like a graphic novel turned into text. It's an unavoidable truth that over sexualised females are a trope of comic books, so I guess it plays into the very visual style Clines is going for.
Still, Cerberus was another of my favourites, and while being a giant robotic suit of hardcore armour it is piloted by a woman. She managed to escape without any descriptions of her body parts that I can remember, and she's both super smart and completely badass. So not all hope is lost.
It's not perfect.. but I didn't expect it to be.. and I don't particularly need it to be! This is a guilty read. It's pure fun. There are a lot of action scenes are they're brilliantly written. The characters are also well-formed, and distinctive. The plot is crazy. If you like superheroes and you like zombies.. give it a read.
I loved it. Maybe I shouldn't have but I did. It's better than I ever expected it to be.. and I cannot wait to read Ex Patriots!