Hench

I feel bad for saying this, but I genuinely hated this book. The opening portion with the temp agency was interesting and I feel like there was probably a sharp satirical short story hidden in there, but that premise is soon abandoned in favour of mean-spirited pranks, bad math, boring rich-girl power fantasy writing and ridiculous romance.

Anna has a vendetta against heroes because of the damage they rack up, but villains seem to somehow be mysteriously exempt from her equations (at one point she blames heroes for creating villains at all, which handily puts any damage they do back on to the heroes anyway). By the end of the book she has her own terrible death toll, which she associates with the stupid romance so I guess it's fine now. The idea that things are this bad and it has gone on for years with no one until Anna mentioning it is kind of unbelievable, and the worldbuilding behind the structural issues surrounding superheroes is introduced so late that basically nothing happens with it.

Most of the characters including the protagonist are cardboard cutouts with identities glued to them - we are introduced to an autistic physics prodigy at one point and she is never mentioned again, I couldn't tell you a single fact about any of the minor character work friends. I've already forgotten most of their names. They obviously all love our main character. The one who showed even the slightest bit of resistance came around almost immediately. Most of the characters with even a tiny spark of life wind up written out of the narrative by the end. The twist involving her evil boss comes up so late that it's almost nonsensical.

I couldn't recommend this book to anyone.