A real gem!

I'd never heard of the author, or the reader, I just took a chance. And what a great find this was! It's a warm hearted, funny and cleverly written book, and Bahni Turpin's rich, versatile voice really enhances the fun. There's literally a cast of thousands in this, including feisty latino superheroes, a mechanical kitchen sink, alien invaders and an evil not-quite-genius. In the wrong hands this story could have been a train wreck, but this is a well choreographed comedy dance piece that will have your toes tapping.

Most of the comedy is character based, so it's good that the characters are so clearly defined, and easy to separate from their voices.
It takes a couple of minutes to pick up pace at the start, while all the unusual circumstances and characters are introduced, but then the plot is up and running, twisting and turning to eventually concludes with a breathless and bubbling climax. Great fun!

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1 person found this helpful

A bit cartoony

This was meant to be a jokey take on superheroes and all the related stuff but it should have been more fun. There were a lot of jokes aimed at low hanging fruit like the Asian superhero having a small shop that his children work in.

The main character is employed as a PA who is supposed to be so good at her job that she doesn't ask questions. This is meant to be funny I guess but it just didn't land for me. Her making her boss dozens of cups of coffee with labels like "Decaff" "Caff" or "One sugar" "No sugar" for her boss to select one and have all the others thrown away is insane. A good employee would just ask their boss "How do you like your coffee?"

A lot of the middle of the book is very slow too but leading up to a battle at the end things improve a bit. The plot isn't overly complex and the book is good for background listening. The setting is New York and everything is described well.

The characters are a bit shallow and there is a strong "men writing women" vibe to some of them. There are some real gems like "Inspector Well Actually" though which made me smile at the originality but they are few and far between.

The narration was solid though. They did a great job with all the voices.

Would I recommend this? Maybe to younger readers. I might, might buy the sequel. I'm wavering a bit because it looks a little bit darker and the MC won't be in the stupid PA role anymore.

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