Crisis at Comicon

Irene Vartanoff

As a female artist in the male-dominated world of comics, Chloe is looking forward to Comicon. However, when the evil Mistress Miraculous threatens to ruin the event, Chloe must use her secret superpowers to save the convention.

This book starts very strong. The prologue was extremely engaging and I liked the time skip from the prologue to the first chapter. Roland would hate me saying this, but I could almost picture the movie with the voiceover explaining what happened in the prologue and then saying "Let's back up a few days so I can explain how we got here."

The prologue flows fairly nicely into the first chapter, although there is a little too much information given and too much narrative. Instead of telling me what happened months earlier, I would have preferred to have another flash back to see it happening. By the end of the first chapter, I was interested in the story and wanted to see what would happen, although most of that engagement was a result of the prologue.

Which is repeated, word for word, in chapter four. I was a little disappointed when I reached this part. I assumed I would learn more details or maybe see another perspective.

One of the things I liked the best about this book was the strong female characters, even minor ones like random one-line police officers. (I'm look at you, hero who stops a moving car.) However, despite all the strong female role models, I was very unhappy with the main character herself. Instead of being assertive and sure of herself, she spends a lot of time debating whether she's strong enough (emotionally, not physically) to handle the challenges put before her, especially when men are involved.

This is most evident in her relationship with her boyfriend. I severely disliked the fact that she knew his intentions towards her, especially that he wanted different things from their relationship, but she went going back to him anyway. There were about four times when I thought she would move out. Needless to say, I was very disappointed when she didn't. Overall, she gave off the impression of a woman in the middle of an abusive relationship who keeps returning to the abuser even after acknowledging the unhealthy relationship.

Despite the rocky romance, I did enjoy the story and look forward to reading more about the Temporary Superheroine.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the next one in the series. I would rate this story four quills and place it on my middle shelf.