C

Karma Girl

Karma Girl is very silly and yet I could not stop reading it. It doesn’t make much sense and the characters are all kinda dumb and yet I was highly entertained. Either it’s a book with modest ambitions that meets them well, or my headache meds were working better than I thought.

Karma Girl is about a reporter named Carmen who is obsessed with the idea of karma even though she clearly does not understand what that word actually means. On her wedding day she realizes that her fiancé is cheating on her and that he’s a super hero in disguise. Carmen exposes his true identity to the world and makes a career of exposing others. All this ends when she exposes the identity of a superhero who commits suicide because of the reveal. She winds up trying to bring down a super villain while having a romance with Striker and dealing with her feelings of guilt over the suicide.

Even if we cut Carmen some slack for having to operate within certain genre conventions, she’s still a bad reporter. But hey, everyone in this story is as dumb as a bag of hammers (insert Captain Hammer joke here). The romance goes back and forth for no reason and the characters have exactly one personality trait each with the exception of Carmen. And Carmen is annoying. When she told a woman that walking down a street at night is “just asking for trouble” I seriously wanted to punch her in the teeth.

And yet, I kind of enjoyed this silly romp through superhero romance. I loved Lulu, Carmen’s Girl Friday. Lulu whizzes around in a wheelchair and has her own romance with Henry, a nerdy superhero who connects with computers. I’d have preferred to read a story about them, as they seem engaging and smart. The book is fast paced, with a nice sense of humor and a goofy comic book tone. Everyone who isn’t a villain has their hearts in the right place, at least metaphorically, and I love stories about good people. I can’t say this book is great, but when you need some fluff to get you through a bad day, it’s pretty fun.

– Carrie S

Investigative reporter Carmen Cole gets the surprise of her life on her wedding day when she discovers that her fiancé and best friend are sleeping together—and that the two of them are her town’s resident superhero and ubervillain. Shocked and hurt, Carmen reveals their secret identities and then decides to devote her life to unmasking every superhero and ubervillain who crosses her path.

A series of successful unmaskings lands Carmen a job at The Exposé, one of the biggest newspapers in Bigtime, New York, a city that’s full of superheroes and ubervillains. Carmen is in her element—until she gets kidnapped by the Terrible Triad, Bigtime’s most dangerous ubervillain team.

The Triad orders Carmen to uncover the secret identity of Striker, the leader of the Fearless Five, Bigtime’s most popular superhero team—or else they’ll drop her in a vat of radioactive goo. With that threat hanging over her, Carmen sets out to unmask Striker, but what she doesn’t count on is falling for the sexy superhero. But with the Terrible Triad lurking around, this is one story that just might be the death of her….