Name: Emma's review of Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn
Item: Heroine Complex
Rating: 5
Author: Emma

Sarah Kuhn

"Evie Tanaka is the put-upon personal assistant to Aveda Jupiter, her childhood best friend and San Francisco's most beloved superheroine. She's great at her job--blending into the background, handling her boss's epic diva tantrums, and getting demon blood out of leather pants. Unfortunately, she's not nearly as together when it comes to running her own life, standing up for herself, or raising her tempestuous teenage sister Bea. But everything changes when Evie's forced to pose as her glamorous boss for one night, and her darkest secret comes out: she has powers, too"--Page 4 of cover.

Heroine Complex

Diana

Being a superheroine is hard. Working for one is even harder. Evie Tanaka is the put-upon personal assistant to Aveda Jupiter, her childhood best friend and San Francisco's most beloved superheroine. She's great at her job--blending into the background, handling her boss's epic diva tantrums, and getting demon blood out of leather pants. Unfortunately, she's not nearly as together when it comes to running her own life, standing up for herself, or raising her tempestuous teenage sister, Bea. But everything changes when Evie's forced to pose as her glamorous boss for one night, and her darkest secret comes out: she has powers, too. Now it's up to her to contend with murderous cupcakes, nosy gossip bloggers, and supernatural karaoke battles--all while juggling unexpected romance and Aveda's increasingly outrageous demands. And when a larger threat emerges, Evie must finally take charge and become a superheroine in her own right...or see her city fall to a full-on demonic invasion.

 is the perfect read for comic book fans. Filled with humor, it tackles family, friendship and saving the world. i seriously loved this story! It is a roller coaster of a ride with lots of twists! At the same time this book is so unserious it opens on a fight between San Francisco's favorite hero Aveda Jupiter and... demonic cupcakes. But we follow her assistant Evie Tanaka as she struggles to keep the super-heroine's ego soothed, her teen sister's life on track, and her own trauma from taking her over. This series has been on my radar for a couple years and I'm glad I finally got to it. That ending tho 👀

Emma

Super heroes and super villains abound! Heroine Complex is the perfect read for comic book fans. Filled with humor, it tackles family, friendship and saving the world. i seriously loved this story! It is a roller coaster of a ride with lots of twists! At the same time this book is so unserious it opens on a fight between San Francisco's favorite hero Aveda Jupiter and... demonic cupcakes. But we follow her assistant Evie Tanaka as she struggles to keep the super-heroine's ego soothed, her teen sister's life on track, and her own trauma from taking her over. This series has been on my radar for a couple years and I'm glad I finally got to it. That ending tho 👀

Jeff James

Full disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book from Net Galley.

I love stories about people with mundane jobs who exist in the orbit of someone extraordinary – like a personal assistant to a superhero, for example. It’s a fun mental exercise to think about what that might actually be like, what you’d have to deal with when your job function includes placating a petulant heroine when she isn’t out saving lives and stopping evil.

Evie Tanaka is in that exact position when Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn begins. She’s the mousy, reserved personal assistant to Aveda Jupiter, San Francisco’s Favorite Superhero – previously known as Evie’s childhood friend, Annie.

Evie has no social life outside of work and tries to keep her feelings on clampdown because of a tragedy in her past. It doesn’t help that her mom died a few years back and her father subsequently disappeared on walkabout, so Evie is also responsible for taking care of her bratty teenage sister, Bea.

Evie is just barely holding her life together until Aveda is injured and needs someone to take her place in public appearances. See, Aveda’s superhero powers come from a failed demon invasion that turned into an ongoing demon problem, and she isn’t the only person who was granted powers. Their friend Scott can perform little magic spells, including a glamour that will let Evie impersonate Aveda.

As soon as Evie goes out in public as Aveda, things go off the rails. Demons attack, and Evie is forced to use her own powers – flames that come out of her hands when she is upset or angry. She’d tried to keep them inside like her emotions because she was afraid of what she might do, but as soon as she lets them out, she finds it much harder to keep anything inside.

Heroine Complex is ultimately a story about a closed-off, repressed young woman learning to trust her own emotions and believe in herself. It’s also funny, full of well-drawn characters, and genuinely entertaining.

When I first picked it up and started reading, I assumed that it was a young adult novel, partially because of the cover, but also because of the writing style, which made the characters seem young. However, as I kept reading, it became obvious that the characters were all in their late twenties. Then there was the first of several fairly hot sex scenes, which made me realize that I’d been reading an urban fantasy all along.

This genre confusion didn’t negatively impact my enjoyment of the book, but it did make me wonder why I immediately assumed it was a young adult novel. I really like the cover design, but maybe the cartoony style made me jump to conclusions.

In any case, I’d definitely recommend Heroine Complex. It’s the first book in a trilogy, each of which focuses on a different girl in the group – Evie, then Aveda, and then finally Bea. I’ll probably pick up the next two sometime soon.

Originally published at Full of Words

Becky A

This was such a delight! I read it in basically one sitting on a flight, and really enjoyed it. The biggest weakness was that I think the thing with Nate near the end was really abrupt -- before it happened, I had thought I hoped there was a whole book about his backstory, and then it's introduced and dispensed with VERY quickly. BUT! The book is a ton of fun. It feels very New Adult-y -- too old for YA, but with a distinctly young protagonist still trying to figure out her life. 

I liked that the worldbuilding held together and was self-contained - it wasn't a things-have-always-been-this-way situation, or a whole-secret-magic-world thing. There was a Thing That Happened that changed a (few) things and all the stuff in the book dated back to that one event, which made sense.

I also dug how much of it was about an emotional journey that still involved an action plot. A lot of books tends to lean too hard one way or the other (either entirely about character growth, which tends to be dull to me; or entirely about action, which often reads a bit flat). In this case, though, the growth was all stuff that was part of the action plot or the action plot reflected the ways the characters needed to mature. And I *love* how much of it was about relationships between girls -- Evie and Aveda, Evie and Bea, even Mercedes and Shasta. 

And oh, Lucy was really fun, too! I hope she, Rose, and Scott get fleshed out more in the future books. 

Basically: this was really fun, and I will pick up the sequels as soon as they're out.

Connor 

[slams hand on table] ANOTHER.


4.5. From lady Asian superheroes to pop culture references (which did not feel heavy handed? I'm impressed) to karaoke nights to lady bodyguards and childhood friends... I was pretty much destined to love this book. 

Kuhn aptly navigates the difficult task of keeping the prose light and fun without sweeping away the struggles and sorrows the characters encounter, making Heroine Complex one of those few novels that manages to tackle the weight of the world--racism! sexism! the male centered gaze! absentee parents! demons from the Otherworld!--without leaving the reader staggering underneath that weight. The frankness of her narration is both refreshing, humorous, and thought provoking. The genuine care and frustration between her characters is much the same, and I look forward to seeing what they do after this book. 

Also there are a bunch of kickass fight scenes AND a karaoke match to the death (am I exaggerating? Am I not? WHO KNOWS), and I am ALL about both of those.

Ley Stanton

I had some problems with the writing in this book, but overall I really enjoyed the unique story and characters hilarious banter.
Full review: https://leyreads.wordpress.com/2016/0...

Ella Zegarra

Un libro para niños?
No. 
Entonces Young Adult?
No
Pero la portada... 
LO SÉ.

Original de: El Blog del Gato - El Extraño Gato del Cuento

Heroine Complex me encantó porque hay una gran amistad en el libro que, a pesar de tener un montón de problemas, tratan de resolverlo de manera adulta… claro, luego de mucho berrinche de Aveda en algún momento Lee este libro por el simple placer de leer un buen libro, es rapidísimo de leer.

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Amanda J 

You know when you really, really want to like a book? I wanted to so bad, all the elements were there--humour, quirky superpowers, campy af, puppyish demons, and a lil romance. But it was in one of the main components of the book, the characters, that it just didn't work out.

I kept reading hoping it'll get better, they'll be character-growth. And there was, to an extent. The main character Evie (and kinda Nate) had pretty great development-went from an emotionless doormat to a functioning human, well to the extent they can lol. It was the other characters, mainly Aveda and Bea. They were horrible little nuisances to the point of being caricatures and unbelievable. I wanted to tell Evie to leave them in the past. They were horrible to Evie (and the other side characters). They never heard anything but what they wanted and twisted everything around to fit the narrative in their head. And just when you think they've made some progress, they regress, and the cycle continues. My thinking is that in the next 2 books, in which both Aveda and Bea are the main characters, they'll have their growth. But damn it was annoying.

I'll read the next book and maybe continue on. Because no matter how many times I almost DNFed the book, I just couldn't let myself. It was the promise that the book could be just what I wanted if only I held out a little longer.

Leelynn Brady

So my first introduction to Sarah Kuhn was with her YA debut I Love You So Mochi, which I did a rapid review earlier on. I already knew I loved her writing style, and I remembered that I bought this and knew that I had to try this one, especially since this was her debut debut, you know? Not only was the whole concept of a superhero having a whole PR team / Personal Assistant type of business behind her, but I also loved how diverse this novel was. Since when have you seen an Asian-American popular superhero in entertainment that wasn’t a side character? It makes me wish that Netflix or Hulu would adapt this into a TV series because I would absolutely love to see this play out on film, you know? As long as they do the casting right, which they really better because really there is no excuse to not be able to find some talented actors without white-washing. We have Aveda Jupiter (our resident Super Hero) who is Chinese-American, main character Evie Tanaka who is Irish-Japanese-American, and honestly pretty much everyone associated with the Aveda Jupiter team is a person of color, not to mention the characters that are queer. The first person POV and seeing how the life of a PA to a superhero would be was so damn entertaining! I can’t wait to read the rest of the series. Oh, and you should SEE how much Aveda actually works so hard to make sure that she is protecting San Francisco with all that she has. No half-assing over here.

Ben Nathan

This was SO much fun. I thought it was a teen novel for a while, then realized it definitely wasn't. The idea was really fun and well executed. I think the future books of the series are going to be winners for sure. As a new writer, she's definitely ahead of the curve.

Sheila

Asian-American superheroines Evie Tanaka and Aveda Jupiter protect San Francisco from perilous threats in the first book in Sarah Kuhn's snarky and smart fantasy trilogy • "The superheroine we’ve been waiting for." —Seanan McGuire Being a superheroine is hard. Working for one is even harder. Evie Tanaka is the put-upon personal assistant to Aveda Jupiter, her childhood best friend and San Francisco’s most beloved superheroine. She’s great at her job—blending into the background, handling her boss’s epic diva tantrums, and getting demon blood out of leather pants. Unfortunately, she’s not nearly as together when it comes to running her own life, standing up for herself, or raising her tempestuous teenage sister, Bea. But everything changes when Evie’s forced to pose as her glamorous boss for one night, and her darkest secret comes out: she has powers, too. Now it’s up to her to contend with murderous cupcakes, nosy gossip bloggers, and supernatural karaoke battles—all while juggling unexpected romance and Aveda’s increasingly outrageous demands. And when a larger threat emerges, Evie must finally take charge and become a superheroine in her own right...or see her city fall to a full-on demonic invasion.

Diana &
Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn

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