Aury Wallington

At least this as an interesting approach to a TV tie-in novel; instead of more exciting adventures with the characters from the series it’s a character piece based on it, a romance with superpowers. That choice is the best thing about the book though. What this story could have been is a tragic, doomed romance which, knowing the ending, breaks your heart. What it ends up being is a quick shallow sprint through what should have been a tender relationship. Hiro’s reduced from the lovable onscreen geek to a sketch of a geek, a pop culture obsessed virgin who can’t talk to a girl. And Charlie is a caricature of a smalltown girl. There’s no depth or impact to the tragedies of her life, they’re just things that have happened to her, from the death of her parents to her own death. The moments that should have sung, moments like Hiro using his powers for romantic purposes and a late reciprocation by her just occur with no visible impact. There’s no attempt to play up the culture clash between Texas and Tokyo never a moment where you can marvel at how strange it really is. And this is all wrapped in perfunctory prose which often seems to struggling to his a page count. Perhaps if this had been an episode the actors could have lifted it – the material’s certainly there for them to play the audience’s heartstrings like a violin – but what’s here feels better material for the screen than the page.… (more)