A review by kingcrookback
Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots

adventurous dark medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
It's an interesting premise, I'll give it that. Superheroes and -villains as concepts come with certain pressing logistical and moral quandaries, which is why pieces like this book and The Boys are created and then proliferate. How does one calculate the cost of one's actions? How valuable is "the greater good," all told? I actually really liked some of the execution. In particular, I liked how Anna not being able to unsee the human cost of superheroes as an institution is something of an allegory for the real-life experience of realizing how damaging the institutions governing one's daily life often are and not being able to shake the burden of that knowledge. Additional props to Walschots - Anna's experience of being disabled, being frustrated with her body's limits and worried about being seen as an unbearable burden by her friends, really hit home for me, as a disabled person.

However, because I listened to the audiobook and the narrator's character work was lacking, I don't think the gravity of this story was quite balanced with its humor and absurdity. The voices that she gave these characters (aside from Anna) often lacked emotional modulation, and some of them were so grating that 1) it was impossible to take them seriously even in genuinely somber scenes and 2) I'm surprised I didn't just straight up DNF.
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