I read the first two novels in this trilogy last year and really enjoyed them. They have a very comic book feel, focusing on romantic heroines with superpowers. Many of the scenes are ridiculously over the top but entertaining (such as possessed wedding dresses and armies of angry brides). This novel is set a few years after the original two which took place within a short amount of each other. This is due to the fact that this novel follows Bea Tanaka, the younger sister of Evie, and time needed to pass for her to be of legal age.
Evie and Bea had a complicated relationship in the earlier books, but it seemed that she had started to find herself and her interests at the end of the last novel. Now, a few years later, Bea is still trying to find herself, not feeling like she quite has a spot on the team. Her super power is passive compared to Evie’s fire abilities and Aveda’s fighting skills combined with telekinesis (she has a second power, the Canary scream, but she hasn’t explored it too much).
Bea’s mother died when the girls were younger, and Evie became a bit of a substitute mother. As it turns out, Bea still has a lot of unresolved mother issues because when she receives a message that seems to be from her mother, she immediately trusts it, and spends the rest of the novel trying to figure out what really happened to her mom, and how she might be able to save her.
While Bea is tired of being treated as the little sister, she also spends a lot of the novel making impulsive, questionable decisions. She discovers new ways to use her power, but given the nature of the level up of her power, this leads to some morally grey areas.
I’ll definitely keep reading Sarah Kuhn, but this was the weakest of the Heroine Complex novels. I was honestly hoping for a bit of a love to hate romance plot line but as it turns out, her arch-nemesis is not the love interest, and instead it’s the dependable friend that takes on the romantic hero role. Given all the other drama in Bea’s life, that makes sense, and Bea is forced to confront her resentment for her nemesis as part of the growing up she does in this novel. I wouldn’t say I was annoyed with Bea per se but she very much had a chip on her shoulder, and her inability to consider any other views was frustrating. Evie remains my favorite of the heroines, which would explain why her novel is also my favorite.