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maloki's review
adventurous
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
justasking27's review against another edition
I am very not into this writing style, I don't like any of the characters, and I'm struggling with the world and the plot. Maybe try again later, but wow are there a lot of books in the world.
corfie's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I don't think this book is bad. I actually quite liked some of the ideas that were introduced. Unfortunately the writing style didn't work for me at all and left me mostly confused and frustrated.
shellycampbellauthor's review against another edition
5.0
Kit has a hard time making connections, but Darby does a superb job connecting us to her and the crumbling world around her. This was a fascinating, fast-paced, yet lyrical read about what commercialized super heroism might look like. Loved it and highly recommend!
doctorwoofwoof's review
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I read a lot of books, and I have read a lot of books in my 53 years. So many that these days seem to blend into one another, with so many stories feeling as though they have already been told and are nothing more than rehashes! In EVER THE HERO, the first in Darby Harn's Eververse series, the story is anything but a rehash, offering a tale that is fresh as well as offering welcome takes on a number of genres.
The book, as I said, touches on a number of genres: LGBTQ+ science-fiction, superheroes, romance, as well as some solid social commentary that mirrors so much of what is going on in our country at the moment! Best of all, he never adheres to one genre, or idea, for too long, instead opting to go between them, as that moment in the story calls for it. Even the mentioning of "superheroes" isn't truly fair, for the way he writes it, the concept is more of an afterthought rather than the main focus of the story, like in one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe entries over the last decade or so.
As engaging as the story, it is also worth noting the characters, main or otherwise, were equally engaging! Each had something to bring to the table, adding to the overall plot, and tying together at the novel's very satisfying end!
I can't tell you what to read, or what not to read. All I can is what I felt: I LOVED it! I loved it so much that after finishing it on my Kindle Fire this afternoon, I had to go get the rest of the books and novellas in the series; it's just that good! But don't let me speak for you, go, get to reading, why don't'cha'? Cheers..
The book, as I said, touches on a number of genres: LGBTQ+ science-fiction, superheroes, romance, as well as some solid social commentary that mirrors so much of what is going on in our country at the moment! Best of all, he never adheres to one genre, or idea, for too long, instead opting to go between them, as that moment in the story calls for it. Even the mentioning of "superheroes" isn't truly fair, for the way he writes it, the concept is more of an afterthought rather than the main focus of the story, like in one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe entries over the last decade or so.
As engaging as the story, it is also worth noting the characters, main or otherwise, were equally engaging! Each had something to bring to the table, adding to the overall plot, and tying together at the novel's very satisfying end!
I can't tell you what to read, or what not to read. All I can is what I felt: I LOVED it! I loved it so much that after finishing it on my Kindle Fire this afternoon, I had to go get the rest of the books and novellas in the series; it's just that good! But don't let me speak for you, go, get to reading, why don't'cha'? Cheers..
gurusugu's review
4.0
Really liked this book. Good narrative structure and poignant story. A few parts were a little too "on-the-nose", but it fit the overall story. Well written.
sunyidean's review
5.0
Gorgeous literary writing, sweeping themes about how capitalist gain has replaced empathy in American society, and Darby's usual amazing dialogue. All packaged in a very modern take on the superhero genre: what happens if superheroes were privatised and salvation had a subscription fee? Nothing good, is the answer.
Also features a complex threeway love story (between three women) with all the angst and nuance you would expect from Darby's writing (check out some if his published short stories and you would see what I mean), for some quality f/f rep.
Also features a complex threeway love story (between three women) with all the angst and nuance you would expect from Darby's writing (check out some if his published short stories and you would see what I mean), for some quality f/f rep.
rm206's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
tense
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief
Moderate: Mental illness, Police brutality, Violence, and Animal death
Minor: Self harm, Racism, Kidnapping, Gun violence, and Bullying
synth's review
1.0
Ok, this is gonna be long and rambly, probably my longest review. I had to take time off from the book every so often to put down my thoughts because I was sometimes bored, sometimes confused, all the times just not-clicking. And I needed to know why, because the premise, and even the core thread, seemed very interesting to me. And the beginning gave me hope, but I grew increasingly disappointed and angry at this book so I ended up not liking it at all. (However, I can see how others can like it much more.)
WRITING
The writing fails at eliciting the feeling of tension and danger I can see it’s trying really hard to create. I think definitely because it all seems like not that big of a deal, like the MC is making a mountain out of nothing about a lot of stuff. Probably because we actually don’t get to see and know anything of importance.
- Why did it matter that her mom died? We never saw her or the MC care for and about her.
- What does it matter that the first LI might leave Earth? We don’t see her or the MC care about her. Also, literally no development to this love, they meet and then they sleep together and they’re an established couple? Who don’t talk?Like we have more of a sense of the colleague who has a crush on her, which, sure, she is obviously gonna be LI #2 (which, I have to say, I cannot understand why she sees the MC as the best thing in her life when they both agree the MC is in love with someone else, the MC keeps pushing her away “for her own protection”, and basically LI2 needs to keep doing all of the emotional work for her – oh wait, I know, it’s because the MC is written literally like a man – see below), but at the moment, what should matter is why the urgency to save LI1. Also, why can’t LI1 just leave and come back when the suit is ready, when it’s implied that easy space travel exists? And wtf is that unwavering faith in this one white girl who's done little to be deemed better than everyone else?
- But also, for example (because after this one, I stopped trying to list everything that didn't manage to elicit the reaction it was trying to), what does it matter that a journalist got her on tape in a black market looking at alien tech? Given the apparently overwhelming grasp on everything her LI1’s company has on the city, I doubt she would see any consequences. (But regardless, we didn’t get to see anything pointing to any risk in being there, and then we’re told she could go to jail, and that’s the main issue.)
I just- I don’t know, I could not getting invested at all, it just did not work. And it all ended feeling prettily told, not shown. Or confusing when it’s neither telling, nor showing.
WORLD
Where is the commentary on the system that I could feel boiling under the surface and thus felt pointedly actively avoided:
- e.g. the MC becoming part of the obviously exploitative and unfair system just because she’s in love with one of them;
- e.g. how the system of super heroism is inherently unhealthy and exploitative to the heroes – and not the BS we get about people being fed up with random destruction;
- e.g. how any megacorporation will never have the rights and well-being of their clients and customers at heart – "the company operates more like a medieval feudal state than a Fortune 500 company." Wait till you hear about all the other fortune 500 companies;
- e.g. how a system revolving around profits and power is inherently genocidal).
Which is all made worse with the cliché of the “impartial” opportunistic journalist (aka just going for the ratings) who screws over the MC, while having built a reputation of going after the megacorporation strangling the city.
I did appreciate the underlying aspect of the actual physical implications, the toll and side effects, of the superpowers, and not in a way that’s ”Oh the weight of the world on my shoulders! Oh the morality of my actions!” Although it tends to read more like the cliché “dangerous/depressed/distant detective because of the toll of their work”, especially for the MC for whom this boils down too often to a fight against the other entity trying to take over :c
But also this book is way too basic and conventional in how it defines heroes. I hoped it would be much more thoughtful, with commenting on how heroes are exactly not what we’ve been brainwashed by usamerican media to imagine. But we get the person in the best position to both illustrate and make that point tell the MC that she didn’t get a medal, and she didn’t get the girl despite this being what “real heroes” are supposed to get? Wut?? This person is a woman of color who walked away from the life of superheroism to become a doctor for the disenfranchised, and THAT’s the lesson she imparts? Also, she tells the MC that her inner heroism or wtv should make her brave enough to expose herself on TV to give hope to people? What the hell kind of logic is this?
(On that note – well, kinda – how many dead birds must now litter anywhere that the MC goes…)
("You can’t wait for someone to give you respect. You’ve got to respect yourself first." Ooh boy... If that isn’t the epitome of white male pseudo-psychology…)
And I had hopes for the commentary about the status quo, and how people on their own understandably just want to live and that’s why we’re all complacent with the system, and how trying to change the system by being part of the system will never accomplish anything but change you to be a cog and make perfunctory gestures to appease without real change, and how “you can’t help everyone” is always used to justify keeping the power structures in place, even if it’s all entirely meant as support for the main character to take on the entire structure on by herself with just brute force I guess.
But the character saying you need to work from within the system and wanting to protect the very company that this book conveniently simplistically portrays as the “only” failure of the system while it had previously perfunctorily mentioned inequalities before the alien catastrophe, is the one promoting fixing the causes and not bandaging the symptoms as if working in the system is not perpetuating the causes?? And like, how is he presented as the voice of reason? Especially when this white dude is presented as the reason in opposition to the brown woman advocating for action, who’s been doing a lot for the disenfranchised for decades while he kept doing his cushy research job.
I'm sure, if you're still reading this, you've surmised my hopes were quashed. We get the MC shouting in anger at the brown woman who's pushing her to take bolder measures against the villain and his corporation that she has powers too and is being a coward or something, regretting it but never addressing it ever again. We get the MC repeatedly trying to go through more or less official channels to have the status quo mostly preserved until the villain gets what he wants, and even then, someone else does the thing that brings him down. And after the dust has settled, she refuses the very needed immediate help of food, electricity, etc offered by the rival another corporation (obviously with strings attached, but still, that would fall under the book's views of using the system).
And like WTF is this insistence that GP needs to survive so that the city doesn’t lose everything? Yeah obviously, the system, as it exists now is entirely propping up megacorps because the consequences of their crumbling would be most felt by the “populace” but also let’s be real, the populace is not losing more from the instant crumbling of megacorps than it is losing more invisibly from their continued remaining in power.
Random point, but what is this randomly undercurrent-y sexist crap, including from female characters? Like, I literally do not understand anything about this exchange:
Not ‘You know girls are supposed to play with dolls.’ Or whatever commentary.
We also get the usual "b*tch" insults from women to women who piss them off.
And then the MC’s internal though process goes on about how she wanted to taking things apart and make things, with too much of an undercurrent of “not like other girls”, that felt all but spelled out to me but maybe I’m sensitive to it.
CHARACTERS
Is the MC autistic? I think that's what the writing style is supposed to reflect? Except that it too often reads like a stereotypical trope (re)appearing when it’s convenient. And it’s fine for the first chapters but it quickly starts feeling like it’s trying too hard at stereotyping the image we have of autism as analytical and disconnected and “missing connections” (which is repeated over and over and over). Although, I appreciate that it gives our MC the upper hand in controlling her “powers”.
Not that she's completely unlikable, at least at the beginning; she cares on some level, even as she gets more and more passive in this "I'm not worthy" way as the story progresses *eyeroll*; she is brave enough to act, but again, like a man, only with gestures that will bring her “recognition” even as she doesn’t want it (e.g. she saves a stranger from a robber, she works night and day to build a suit for her LI1, while she ignores her mom and her illness – which I’d like to hope was meant to show her powerlessness in the face of her lack of money and lack of care from her government – which is to me another unaddressed commentary boiling under the surface – and her having exhausted any emotional energy for it after 10+ years, but that really doesn’t come across and instead reads like a man).
Like, she really, REALLY reads like a man:
- in the way things are stated, e.g. “I pour over the specs and diagrams, studying them in microscopic detail as I do every hill and valley of Valene” and “I feel an insatiable hunger to be closer, to be inside her, to know her as a man might know her”;
- and how she brushes off/ignores other people’s (cough*women*cough) feelings (her mom, both of her LIs, her brown woman "mentor" but not her white man mentor, even the journalist in a way that’s not just protecting herself or wtv);
- and how she suppresses her emotions and wants to control what others do “in order to protect them” in a way that reads like the stoic male action hero until he crumbles under the weight*;
- and how she’s casually condescending of others in the way she talks about her own abilities, even as she is self-deprecating about herself (whether it’s her initial cognitive abilities or her newly-acquired superpowers)…
* And then, literally 2 mins later she let's a random black guy who doesn't have powers (and who's the epitome of the good cop who got boosted out of the force, not for standing up for what's right against his hierarchy, mind you) join and help her out with the hero stuff and "the weight of city is lighter on her shoulders" or some crap. And then literally the next day, she goes on camera to reveal herself, thus putting the people she cares about in danger (cause I guess now it's fine) and basically doing what the brown woman suggested a while back, now that it's a white woman saying it... But please, do watch yourself on camera while innocents without powers get beat up and thrown around by empowered responders... And then gets all the credit for what she didn't do *eyeroll*
On that note, why is she the one in charge of making any of the decisions? Because she accidentally melted herself with an alien? What about leaking the video? Because she found it? Why isn't a veteran activist and actually everyone who's involved not allowed to have a say?
Why is she black? What is the point? To make a throwaway commentary about black vs white is now empowered vs powerless? To justify her having access to underground network of goods? To be diverse? To justify the appropriation of the “Whose streets? Our streets!” slogan? Certainly not because white people would be less empathetic to the pleas of the Derelicts’ inhabitants, since as we all know, white people’s experience is both universal and individual enough to be worthy of telling. So basically, her racial identity has literally 0.3% of incidence on anything in the story, and this third of a percent is the cliché “the white side of my family looked at me weird when I visited once in my life at age 6”. (Cool cover, though)
(And generally what's up with pairing all the brown characters with white people huh?)
As for the villain, he turns out super simplistically motivated, very unidimensionally evil. Of course, he is “known” from the very beginning, but I hoped he'd have a more complex and realistic backstory. Like, he could have been very interestingly disillusioned, especially since he's supposed to be coming from deep poverty, but no, he's just always been an egotistical asshole who would kill his family for """knowledge""" aka ego and power like the good ol' white man he is.
WRITING
The writing fails at eliciting the feeling of tension and danger I can see it’s trying really hard to create. I think definitely because it all seems like not that big of a deal, like the MC is making a mountain out of nothing about a lot of stuff. Probably because we actually don’t get to see and know anything of importance.
- Why did it matter that her mom died? We never saw her or the MC care for and about her.
- What does it matter that the first LI might leave Earth? We don’t see her or the MC care about her. Also, literally no development to this love, they meet and then they sleep together and they’re an established couple? Who don’t talk?Like we have more of a sense of the colleague who has a crush on her, which, sure, she is obviously gonna be LI #2 (which, I have to say, I cannot understand why she sees the MC as the best thing in her life when they both agree the MC is in love with someone else, the MC keeps pushing her away “for her own protection”, and basically LI2 needs to keep doing all of the emotional work for her – oh wait, I know, it’s because the MC is written literally like a man – see below), but at the moment, what should matter is why the urgency to save LI1. Also, why can’t LI1 just leave and come back when the suit is ready, when it’s implied that easy space travel exists? And wtf is that unwavering faith in this one white girl who's done little to be deemed better than everyone else?
- But also, for example (because after this one, I stopped trying to list everything that didn't manage to elicit the reaction it was trying to), what does it matter that a journalist got her on tape in a black market looking at alien tech? Given the apparently overwhelming grasp on everything her LI1’s company has on the city, I doubt she would see any consequences. (But regardless, we didn’t get to see anything pointing to any risk in being there, and then we’re told she could go to jail, and that’s the main issue.)
I just- I don’t know, I could not getting invested at all, it just did not work. And it all ended feeling prettily told, not shown. Or confusing when it’s neither telling, nor showing.
WORLD
Where is the commentary on the system that I could feel boiling under the surface and thus felt pointedly actively avoided:
- e.g. the MC becoming part of the obviously exploitative and unfair system just because she’s in love with one of them;
- e.g. how the system of super heroism is inherently unhealthy and exploitative to the heroes – and not the BS we get about people being fed up with random destruction;
- e.g. how any megacorporation will never have the rights and well-being of their clients and customers at heart – "the company operates more like a medieval feudal state than a Fortune 500 company." Wait till you hear about all the other fortune 500 companies;
- e.g. how a system revolving around profits and power is inherently genocidal).
Which is all made worse with the cliché of the “impartial” opportunistic journalist (aka just going for the ratings) who screws over the MC, while having built a reputation of going after the megacorporation strangling the city.
I did appreciate the underlying aspect of the actual physical implications, the toll and side effects, of the superpowers, and not in a way that’s ”Oh the weight of the world on my shoulders! Oh the morality of my actions!” Although it tends to read more like the cliché “dangerous/depressed/distant detective because of the toll of their work”, especially for the MC for whom this boils down too often to a fight against the other entity trying to take over :c
But also this book is way too basic and conventional in how it defines heroes. I hoped it would be much more thoughtful, with commenting on how heroes are exactly not what we’ve been brainwashed by usamerican media to imagine. But we get the person in the best position to both illustrate and make that point tell the MC that she didn’t get a medal, and she didn’t get the girl despite this being what “real heroes” are supposed to get? Wut?? This person is a woman of color who walked away from the life of superheroism to become a doctor for the disenfranchised, and THAT’s the lesson she imparts? Also, she tells the MC that her inner heroism or wtv should make her brave enough to expose herself on TV to give hope to people? What the hell kind of logic is this?
(On that note – well, kinda – how many dead birds must now litter anywhere that the MC goes…)
("You can’t wait for someone to give you respect. You’ve got to respect yourself first." Ooh boy... If that isn’t the epitome of white male pseudo-psychology…)
And I had hopes for the commentary about the status quo, and how people on their own understandably just want to live and that’s why we’re all complacent with the system, and how trying to change the system by being part of the system will never accomplish anything but change you to be a cog and make perfunctory gestures to appease without real change, and how “you can’t help everyone” is always used to justify keeping the power structures in place, even if it’s all entirely meant as support for the main character to take on the entire structure on by herself with just brute force I guess.
But the character saying you need to work from within the system and wanting to protect the very company that this book conveniently simplistically portrays as the “only” failure of the system while it had previously perfunctorily mentioned inequalities before the alien catastrophe, is the one promoting fixing the causes and not bandaging the symptoms as if working in the system is not perpetuating the causes?? And like, how is he presented as the voice of reason? Especially when this white dude is presented as the reason in opposition to the brown woman advocating for action, who’s been doing a lot for the disenfranchised for decades while he kept doing his cushy research job.
I'm sure, if you're still reading this, you've surmised my hopes were quashed. We get the MC shouting in anger at the brown woman who's pushing her to take bolder measures against the villain and his corporation that she has powers too and is being a coward or something, regretting it but never addressing it ever again. We get the MC repeatedly trying to go through more or less official channels to have the status quo mostly preserved until the villain gets what he wants, and even then, someone else does the thing that brings him down. And after the dust has settled, she refuses the very needed immediate help of food, electricity, etc offered by the rival another corporation (obviously with strings attached, but still, that would fall under the book's views of using the system).
And like WTF is this insistence that GP needs to survive so that the city doesn’t lose everything? Yeah obviously, the system, as it exists now is entirely propping up megacorps because the consequences of their crumbling would be most felt by the “populace” but also let’s be real, the populace is not losing more from the instant crumbling of megacorps than it is losing more invisibly from their continued remaining in power.
Random point, but what is this randomly undercurrent-y sexist crap, including from female characters? Like, I literally do not understand anything about this exchange:
“There weren’t any other women action figures, back then anyways, and you were better because you were real. I could imagine being you, or at least being strong.” Her smile freezes, like she doesn’t know what to say. “I thought girls played with dolls.”
Not ‘You know girls are supposed to play with dolls.’ Or whatever commentary.
We also get the usual "b*tch" insults from women to women who piss them off.
And then the MC’s internal though process goes on about how she wanted to taking things apart and make things, with too much of an undercurrent of “not like other girls”, that felt all but spelled out to me but maybe I’m sensitive to it.
CHARACTERS
Is the MC autistic? I think that's what the writing style is supposed to reflect? Except that it too often reads like a stereotypical trope (re)appearing when it’s convenient. And it’s fine for the first chapters but it quickly starts feeling like it’s trying too hard at stereotyping the image we have of autism as analytical and disconnected and “missing connections” (which is repeated over and over and over). Although, I appreciate that it gives our MC the upper hand in controlling her “powers”.
“You’re controlling this?” Vidette says. “How?”
“It’s a bit like not eating that last cookie.”
Abi shakes her head. “That’s real restraint.”
Not that she's completely unlikable, at least at the beginning; she cares on some level, even as she gets more and more passive in this "I'm not worthy" way as the story progresses *eyeroll*; she is brave enough to act, but again, like a man, only with gestures that will bring her “recognition” even as she doesn’t want it (e.g. she saves a stranger from a robber, she works night and day to build a suit for her LI1, while she ignores her mom and her illness – which I’d like to hope was meant to show her powerlessness in the face of her lack of money and lack of care from her government – which is to me another unaddressed commentary boiling under the surface – and her having exhausted any emotional energy for it after 10+ years, but that really doesn’t come across and instead reads like a man).
Like, she really, REALLY reads like a man:
- in the way things are stated, e.g. “I pour over the specs and diagrams, studying them in microscopic detail as I do every hill and valley of Valene” and “I feel an insatiable hunger to be closer, to be inside her, to know her as a man might know her”;
- and how she brushes off/ignores other people’s (cough*women*cough) feelings (her mom, both of her LIs, her brown woman "mentor" but not her white man mentor, even the journalist in a way that’s not just protecting herself or wtv);
- and how she suppresses her emotions and wants to control what others do “in order to protect them” in a way that reads like the stoic male action hero until he crumbles under the weight*;
- and how she’s casually condescending of others in the way she talks about her own abilities, even as she is self-deprecating about herself (whether it’s her initial cognitive abilities or her newly-acquired superpowers)…
* And then, literally 2 mins later she let's a random black guy who doesn't have powers (and who's the epitome of the good cop who got boosted out of the force, not for standing up for what's right against his hierarchy, mind you) join and help her out with the hero stuff and "the weight of city is lighter on her shoulders" or some crap. And then literally the next day, she goes on camera to reveal herself, thus putting the people she cares about in danger (cause I guess now it's fine) and basically doing what the brown woman suggested a while back, now that it's a white woman saying it... But please, do watch yourself on camera while innocents without powers get beat up and thrown around by empowered responders... And then gets all the credit for what she didn't do *eyeroll*
On that note, why is she the one in charge of making any of the decisions? Because she accidentally melted herself with an alien? What about leaking the video? Because she found it? Why isn't a veteran activist and actually everyone who's involved not allowed to have a say?
Why is she black? What is the point? To make a throwaway commentary about black vs white is now empowered vs powerless? To justify her having access to underground network of goods? To be diverse? To justify the appropriation of the “Whose streets? Our streets!” slogan? Certainly not because white people would be less empathetic to the pleas of the Derelicts’ inhabitants, since as we all know, white people’s experience is both universal and individual enough to be worthy of telling. So basically, her racial identity has literally 0.3% of incidence on anything in the story, and this third of a percent is the cliché “the white side of my family looked at me weird when I visited once in my life at age 6”. (Cool cover, though)
(And generally what's up with pairing all the brown characters with white people huh?)
As for the villain, he turns out super simplistically motivated, very unidimensionally evil. Of course, he is “known” from the very beginning, but I hoped he'd have a more complex and realistic backstory. Like, he could have been very interestingly disillusioned, especially since he's supposed to be coming from deep poverty, but no, he's just always been an egotistical asshole who would kill his family for """knowledge""" aka ego and power like the good ol' white man he is.
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