Take a photo of a barcode or cover
calamitymane 's review for:
Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1
by G. Willow Wilson
If nothing else, this book made me come to a realisation: I do not like super hero comics.
There is a lot to like about this book - it’s about a female superhero; that female superhero just happens to be Pakistani-American (how I hate that convention); and a teenager. It’s sort of a coming of age tale within a coming of age tale (she must come to terms with who she is now ::cough:: superhero, while coming to terms with who she is full stop). It’s a female point of view, written from a female point of view. This is a great book for geek girls of colour who would like to see themselves reflected in the pages of a genre that they love. Especially those who have immigrated or whose parents have immigrated.
My problems with the graphic novel? It’s YA, for one, and that just isn’t my wheelhouse. Two, the disjointed narrative that is inherent to telling a story in superhero comic form. Three, the disjointed narrative that IS telling a superhero story, especially in comic book form.
None of those things appeal to me. I don’t like struggling to follow the storyline, particularly when it’s not because I don’t understand the storyline, but because I can’t find the next bloody sentence. I dislike the quasi-science that I am always forced to make excuses for, just so that it fits the story.
In this tale of growing up as the child of immigrant parents in America, neither Wilson (the author) nor Kamala Kahn (the protagonist) sheds any new light on what it means to be brown and a teenage girl and living near New York (especially after 9/11 and the “reports” of the Muslim community on 9/11). I feel that Wilson missed an opportunity to tell an interesting tale here and chose to fall back on familiar territory instead.
The most compelling character in the book was Kamala’s older brother. I wanted to know more about him and felt that the story would have been better served if *he* had been the one to suddenly have superpowers. That’s not good in a novel about another protagonist. The surrounding story isn’t enough to make me continue with the series to find out what happens to him.
There is a lot to like about this book - it’s about a female superhero; that female superhero just happens to be Pakistani-American (how I hate that convention); and a teenager. It’s sort of a coming of age tale within a coming of age tale (she must come to terms with who she is now ::cough:: superhero, while coming to terms with who she is full stop). It’s a female point of view, written from a female point of view. This is a great book for geek girls of colour who would like to see themselves reflected in the pages of a genre that they love. Especially those who have immigrated or whose parents have immigrated.
My problems with the graphic novel? It’s YA, for one, and that just isn’t my wheelhouse. Two, the disjointed narrative that is inherent to telling a story in superhero comic form. Three, the disjointed narrative that IS telling a superhero story, especially in comic book form.
None of those things appeal to me. I don’t like struggling to follow the storyline, particularly when it’s not because I don’t understand the storyline, but because I can’t find the next bloody sentence. I dislike the quasi-science that I am always forced to make excuses for, just so that it fits the story.
In this tale of growing up as the child of immigrant parents in America, neither Wilson (the author) nor Kamala Kahn (the protagonist) sheds any new light on what it means to be brown and a teenage girl and living near New York (especially after 9/11 and the “reports” of the Muslim community on 9/11). I feel that Wilson missed an opportunity to tell an interesting tale here and chose to fall back on familiar territory instead.
The most compelling character in the book was Kamala’s older brother. I wanted to know more about him and felt that the story would have been better served if *he* had been the one to suddenly have superpowers. That’s not good in a novel about another protagonist. The surrounding story isn’t enough to make me continue with the series to find out what happens to him.