Hello everyone 🙂 I’ve been asked by the girls of Book Binge to join them on this blog which I’m sure is going to be great fun. I am not giving up on reviewing books on my own blog however, so we’ll see how I handle everything… I think it’s going to be interesting ^^;
So here are my first contributions to Book Binge 🙂
Karma Girl
Someone has to pay for what happened to Carmen Cole …
Bigtime, New York is not big enough for both Carmen Cole and the superheroes and ubervillains who walk its streets. An intrepid reporter, Carmen’s dedicated her life to unmasking the spandex wearers, all because her fiancé turned out to be a superhero, and a cheating one at that – sleeping with none other than his nubile nemesis.
Exposing the true identities of the nation’s caped crusaders and their archenemies has catapulted Carmen from her sleep southern hometown to the front pages of one of the country’s biggest newspapers, The Exposé. Hobnobbing with modelizing millionaires and famished fashionistas is all in a day’s work for the woman hot on the trail of the Fearless Five and Terrible Triad. But when Carmen gets the scoop of her career, her life comes crashing down around her. And even Bigtime’s sexiest superhero, Striker, may not be able to save her …
The book starts with Carmen finding her fiancé in bed with her best friend 30 minutes before saying “I do.” Worst, she discovers that her fiancé is the town’s superhero and her best friend, the town’s ubervillain. Not really knowing which hurts more, the betrayal or the fact that the people closest to her couldn’t trust her, she discloses their identity in the newspaper she’s working for. For the next few years, she goes on a mission: discover and disclose as many identities as she can. Her hard work finally lands her a great job in Bigtime (a bit like NY), where she was asked to discover the identities of the Fearless Five, the town’s superheroes. However, her life and job lose all their charms when one of the Fearless Five’s member commits suicide after she reveals his true identity. At this point, she questions her motives, decides to give up on superheroes and ubervillains and is relegated to covering social events… Then enters Bigtime’s ubervillains, the Terrible Triad, who kidnap her and threaten her to find the identity of the remaining Fearless Five or else, they’ll turn her into a science project which will eventually kill her.
So my thoughts on the book? I enjoyed it a lot. Surprisingly, I liked Carmen. I usually don’t really like reporter characters, but Carmen wasn’t too report-y. She did get on my nerves here and there, but I could understand her motivation. In addition, she gave up on her mission when she learnt that she caused the death of Tornado. She didn’t cling to the “the public has a right to know” mantra. Also, she tried to find solutions and options to her problems, although I admit, self-sacrifice isn’t the smartest solution ^^; On the other hand, the hero, Striker – the leader of the Fearless Five, he was kind of meh. See, this book focuses more on Carmen, the main plot and the building of the world than the romance. As a result, the other characters introduced, including the hero, weren’t well fleshed out. We only got them in one dimension, which was unfortunate, but understandable.
My biggest issue with this book however is the predictability. As you read, you can easily guess who are the superheroes, the ubervillains and some of the events to come. It does not ruin the book, but it takes a bit of the enjoyment away. To her credit, Ms Estep did try to deal with the issue in the book; however, having the characters acknowledged the obviousness of the superheroes and ubervillains identities makes it even more obvious to the readers.
Basically, reading this book felt a lot like watching the Walt Disney movie, The Incredibles. The idea isn’t bad, the writing is good and the story, enjoyable; however, the predictability and the redundancy of the story (superheroes fight ubervillains, superheroes win, ubervillains go back to plot something else) might ruin the series in the long run. For now, Karma Girl is a good debut novel and a nice introduction to Bigtime; however, I wish it had focused a bit more on the romance.
3.5 out of 5
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Karma Girl
I have both of Jennifer Estep’s books here to read. One day I will get to them
I really enjoyed this book. Yeah it’s predictable, but when you watch Batman or something, you know who everyone is. As long as the other characters don’t know, it’s ok. That comes along with a story like this.
Marg – I think the book was enjoyable and you should read it if you want something fun and light 🙂
Ames – I guess it is a bit different when you watch and when you read. True, we know already who are the superheroes and villains in a movie… it’s just that I could really guess what was going to happen. But I did enjoyed it 🙂 I can’t wait for Jinx 🙂