A review by snaileton
Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots

adventurous funny
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.0

a very easy read and was great for getting me out of my reading slump, but the quality was lacking for me. the story really lost steam around the 75% mark and i ended up skimming the entire last quarter of it. this book is often marketed as an example of "female rage," but the reader doesn't really get to feel that rage. we know why Anna is angry at the superheroes and we know what she's doing about it, but the true depth of her feelings is never really conveyed. for rage in books to be effective (imo), i need the description of the character's anger to be visceral, but walschots just never goes that far. it was really disappointing. also kind of random but i didn't enjoy that basically every character falls in love with anna and anna is vaguely in love with everyone? it happened with nearly every character and felt out of place every time. i get setting up potential romantic relationships for later books, but it was damn near every single person she met. it does have great body horror and a good bit of queer rep!
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