Fitzgerald’s first novel, the start of a projected four-book starter, is powered by voice, especially Sylvia’s rococo phrasing (as narrator, her sentences gush from one incisive, surprising phrase to the next) and her friends’ relentless good humor and camaraderie. When Sylvia endeavors to strike her first superhero pose, Celia cracks “I’m getting less super and more of a girdle-model vibe, with a bad case of acid reflux.” Readers who relish the feeling of hanging out with a funny friend group, especially one with a pup, Moondogger, who might be more than he seems, will find much of this series starter a laugh-along pleasure.
That amusing verbosity and depth of character, though, comes at the cost of narrative momentum, as the kidnapping plot doesn’t really get going until over halfway through this quite long book. Before that, the possibilities of superheroics amuse the cast but don’t feel urgent, and chapter-length flashbacks into the friends’ shared history dig into mysteries that simply don’t feel as pressing as the novel’s present. The action, when it comes, is both exciting and pained, superheroics stripped of adolescent power fantasy, for the better.
Takeaway: Funny and intimate superpowered epic of a young woman, her dog, and great friends.
Comparable Titles: Cai Emmons’s Weather Woman, Gail Carriger.
Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A
