Bingo 22: Rec’d
Those Goodreads emails that include “stuff currently popular” are often annoying, but sometimes skimming them pays off. I saw a review of the sequel to Hench, which led to me clicking on Hench, and being convinced to pick it up from the library based on those reviews. We’ll call that “recommended”.
Imagine the world governed by super heroes and supervillains, but the heroes might be as destructive and violent and generally damaging as the villains. Anna is a temp worker for a hench-person agency, which means she spends a lot of time working as a low level behind the scenes hench-woman to various villains. Her specialty is data analysis, which you’d think would be useful, btu she struggles to find decent consistent work, Then one day she gets caught in the crossfire of a hero rescue, is rendered disabled, and now is angry at the world that supports the hero who not only caused her injury but also did a lot of other damage. Her solution: start a data driven blog that proves that heroes actually hurt as many if not more ordinary citizens than villains. This gets her attention, and eventually she’s working for one of the major supervillains, and pursuing her own vengeance while she’s at it. Other personal stuff happens too, but that’s not really the point.
This is “angry, powerless minion gets a chance and goes for it” wish-fulfillment, but with some attention to the costs of pursuing your dreams. It’s violent, the “body horror” label on the back cover is kind of deserved, especially towards the end, and almost a corruption arc. It’s also entertaining, as the villain crew is a good group of tropes with slight twists (the scary trainer, brilliant but slightly off kilter computer geeks, etc.).
If you like superhero tropes, particularly the of the “heroes might be the bad guys” variety, this might be a good one for you. Anna’s an angry girl who gets her chance to pursue vengeance, and does she ever go for it. Her obsession with her boss is a little odd, but it’s balanced by her team up with an unexpected ally by the end, and that ends up being the thing that saves everyone {who deserves saving at least}.