Heroine Worship

After saving the city from a demon queen, Aveda Jupiter and Evie Tanaka face a doldrums period in which no superheroing is needed. Evie takes it well, but Aveda cannot stand the slow pace. Both of their lives are upended when Evie's boyfriend proposes to her, and demon activity starts popping up every place where brides-to-be congregate.

This book picks up right where the previous one left off, but there's enough back story given throughout the text that a reader could start with this sequel and not feel lost. Unlike the previous title in which Evie was the first POV narrator, this time we hear directly from Aveda. I wasn't sure at first if I was going to love that change, but I actually did. We got to see her perspective on things show more while getting deeper into her emotions, particularly as she dealt with the tension she felt between her Aveda Jupiter superhero persona and her actual Annie Chang identity. In addition, her parents showed up this title, allowing her to delve into this storyline about expectations and duty more fully than in the previous book.

All in all, this was a fun romp that spoofed on the Bridezilla trend with satirical tongue-in-cheek comments. Meanwhile it was full of action and a bit of mystery. (Even if I guessed the culprit behind it all much earlier than the reveal, it was still nice to have something to unravel.) There's also some romantic aspects while simultaneously navigating female friendships, and dealing with other interpersonal issues. So much packed into one book! I'm looking forward to the next title in this series. show less

Aveda Jupiter/Annie Chang is a goddamn mess and I love her for it. We have very different personalities (...maybe...) and yet there were so many points in the book when I nearly shouted “OH GOD I RELATE!!!!!!!!”

I loved everything dealing with Annie’s identity crisis and struggle to fix her relationship with her best friend; that all felt really, deeply genuine. The romance aspect felt a bit more like stereotypical romance novel fare — but it was still cute. I lived the fantasy. (And it was my favorite romance trope, so I can’t actually complain.)

Really, my only complaint is that I want more queer representation than two minor lesbian characters. Give me all the sexualities and gender identities!Barring that, make Lucy and Rose show more main characters in the next book. I’m greedy but I’m really not hard to please.

All things considered, another really delightful book in what I hope will be a really delightful series. show less

Aveda Jupiter is struggling to be a better friend to her no-longer-sidekick Evie; it’s not easy when the world wants one lady to be the bad one and the other to be the good one, and they’ve picked Evie for the good one. Still, they have other problems, like a troubling resurgence of demonic puppy incursions—this time, invisible. Not to mention Evie’s upcoming wedding. Both my daughter and I enjoyed this, especially the strong female friendship that didn’t take a back seat to the romance. She thinks it was awesome! Also, bonus: the cover artist clearly read the whole book.

The first half of this book is kind of hard to read. The book is from Aveda Jupiter’s perspective and I spent half the book mentally (and sometimes actually) yelling at her to stop what she was doing and pay attention to someone other than herself for five seconds! But the whole point of the book is getting her to a place where she can see what she’s doing and start improving. So, it’s not easy to read, but it’s well done. Overall I enjoyed it and I definitely recommend the series.

Really enjoyable installment in the Heroine Complex series. I liked this one more than the first book — probably because I sympathized with Aveda's personality issues more than I did with Evie's in book one. The demon attack part of the plot was really fun, and blended nicely with the personality conflict part of the plot. Nicely crafted book, and a great escape read.

This is the second in the Heroine Complex series with Aveda and Evie as superheroes. And, just like with the first one, although it looks sort of like a YA book, it mostly isn't. This one seems to not have quite as many adult themes, but, still, I thought it was definitely an adult book.

It starts with not much happening. It's told from Aveda's point of view and she's not feeling very superheroish. She's going along with everything Evie wants, but she feels like she's stuck and that she's losing everything that makes her her.

And then, just as she thinks that perhaps she can dive into a new case (the portal in Maisy's store shows a little bit of life) Evie suddenly is engaged to Nate, and Aveda is the maid of honor.

She wants to be the show more best at that, but what the gang calls a 'puppy demon' is plaguing them in weird and different ways.

It looks like Aveda may not just screw up fighting the demon, but screw up her BFF's wedding and friendship too.

I felt like the book went back and forth really drastically between 'poor Aveda' and 'Aveda's a jerk'. And here and there that pulled me out of the story or had me confused whether I was supposed to be rooting for her or against her.

I did like a lot of the stuff with Shruti and her hair though, that was different and cool, and if there does happen to be a third book I'd love to see more of her in it.

But, I really wish that there had been much more Rose and Lucy. That seems like it could be such an interesting story and to also see some more non-super powered human heroism would be cool.

Still, it was a fun book to read and the story had plenty of interesting and awesome twists and turns. Plus... female superheroes. That alone makes it a must read in my book.

I got this ARC through Netgalley on behalf of DAW and Berkley Publishing Group. show less

I was excited to read something from Annie/Aveda's point of view, and I found her potential journey much more compelling than Evie's, from book 1. But some beats felt way too similar to the last book, and Scott was pretty boring as a love interest. I also found Bea pretty annoying since she seems like a walking teenage slang machine. So I'm not planning to read book 3, which will be from her point of view.