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A review by panda_incognito
Marvel: Avengers Assembly: Orientation by Preeti Chhibber
2.0
This book is chaotic, and not in a good way. The many multi-media elements that it juggles often run together in confusing ways, without clear demarcations of time and place. The beginning was especially difficult, since I had to figure out what order various artifacts came in to start getting into the story. Was a letter, for example, sent before or after the text exchange I'd just seen? Were these photos from the present, or illustrating past events? Even though series like Jedi Academy have been very successful while using a multi-media approach, the sheer quantity of different elements here seemed unnecessarily overwhelming and confusing.
In addition to the confusing pacing, this book also has a weak storyline. The author spends so much time introducing the characters, the school concept, and everyone's various communications with each other that there isn't much time for the actual plot to unfold. It all feels very rushed and poorly paced, with online fan fiction updates from Ms. Marvel interrupting the story at random intervals. Although the reader comments on her updates were funny and realistic, her writing never really went anywhere. It wasn't a story-within-a-story, and was just something else interrupting what little flow this book had.
I really wanted to enjoy this, since I love Ms. Marvel and Squirrel Girl, but it fell flat for me. I'm sure that many of the target middle grade readers will feel differently, and will really get into the story and the characters, but this didn't work for me at all. I'm tempted to still read the second book in case the structure, pacing, and flow improve, but I'm also not sure if I want to exert the same mental strain it took me to figure this book out. The struggle may be somewhat specific to me, since I'm an overly literal, structured, and linear person, but reading this book was WORK, despite how short, light, and illustration-heavy it is.
Also, despite the very limited text, there were two notable writing mistakes. On page 36, Fredrick Douglass's name is missing the second 's,' and page 158 features a dialogue bubble with the word "crumbilng." Even spell-check can catch that, so I have no idea why an editor didn't.
In addition to the confusing pacing, this book also has a weak storyline. The author spends so much time introducing the characters, the school concept, and everyone's various communications with each other that there isn't much time for the actual plot to unfold. It all feels very rushed and poorly paced, with online fan fiction updates from Ms. Marvel interrupting the story at random intervals. Although the reader comments on her updates were funny and realistic, her writing never really went anywhere. It wasn't a story-within-a-story, and was just something else interrupting what little flow this book had.
I really wanted to enjoy this, since I love Ms. Marvel and Squirrel Girl, but it fell flat for me. I'm sure that many of the target middle grade readers will feel differently, and will really get into the story and the characters, but this didn't work for me at all. I'm tempted to still read the second book in case the structure, pacing, and flow improve, but I'm also not sure if I want to exert the same mental strain it took me to figure this book out. The struggle may be somewhat specific to me, since I'm an overly literal, structured, and linear person, but reading this book was WORK, despite how short, light, and illustration-heavy it is.
Also, despite the very limited text, there were two notable writing mistakes. On page 36, Fredrick Douglass's name is missing the second 's,' and page 158 features a dialogue bubble with the word "crumbilng." Even spell-check can catch that, so I have no idea why an editor didn't.