CBR 13 Bingo: Rec’d – I’m reading this series because of teresaelectro’s recommendation!
Heroine Worship is the second book in Sarah Kuhn’s “Heroine Complex” series. In the first volume, Heroine Complex Evie Tanaka is a restrained, quiet assistant and best friend of super heroine, Aveda Jupiter, with a secret, she’s been hiding her own fire superpower. This time around, Aveda is the narrator and the story picks up about three months after the events in the first novel. It is discovered that a minor demon is loose in San Francisco, the challenge is that this one is invisible!
Since the first book, Aveda Jupiter has been doing some serious introspection. She’s realized her diva ways need to go and that she needs to put more effort into being a good friend to Evie. When Evie asks Aveda to be her maid of honor, Aveda sees this as an opportunity to show that she has changed and be the best maid of honor, ever! But habits are hard to break and Aveda goes full force, without really listening to what Evie wants.
Aveda has spent the past few years trying to be the best possible “Aveda Jupiter – SuperHeroine” and that has meant walling off the Annie Chang parts of herself. Annie Chang was the little girl with the messy, emotional outbursts always striving to get her parents’ approval. This line gets blurred whenever Scott is in the picture. Knowing her from childhood, he’s seen her evolution and is attracted to the woman she has become but Scott finds it difficult to connect with “Aveda Jupiter”. Due to history, Aveda has long put distance between her and Scott but in turning over a new leaf decides it’s time to try and be friends again. Friendly quickly turns to heat between the two and Aveda is thrown off balance.
A wedding to plan and prove that she is the bestest best friend, a new type of demon to find and banish, learning how to use her improved telekinesis, and figuring out who she is (and does she want Scott in the picture?) make Aveda a very busy lady. I enjoyed this follow up and appreciated the change in POV to see Aveda grow and round out as a person. I suspect the third book will have a different POV and I wonder if it will be Evie’s sister, Bea. I didn’t quite care for the action as much in this book but the demon was completely different in abilities so it made for different action sequences. I did like their friend Shruti getting a power upgrade. And I very much liked Scott and Aveda. I look forward to their romance continuing!
Note: This is my handsome kitty boy, Sosuke. While thematically it would have been more appropriate to have Ponyo (our girl cat) for a model, I take whichever pet I can get when needing to take a photo!
