When this year began, I decided that instead of just  re-reading all the books I always re-read every year, this year I would make an effort to read things I’ve never read.  I’ve done pretty well so far.  Mostly, I’ve been reading a combination of fantasy, YA,  and graphic novels.  The graphic novels have proved to be worth my time.  (Bone was absolutely fantastic, but Watchmen was a really bizarre read.)  The YA has been a bit hit and miss.  I’ve enjoyed discovering the books by John Green and Rainbow Rowell.  Then there are books like The Selection series, which I’ve only stuck with because I felt like I should finish what I start.  They’re typically books with a good idea, but the execution is poor.

Then there are books like the one I just tried to read.

About a year ago, I heard that Marvel was going to be publishing two chick-lit novels.  One about She-Hulk, the other about Rogue.  The idea was that it would introduce female non-comic readers to these comic characters and thus make them want to go read the actual comics.  In theory, a decent idea.

 

I recently got my hands on both novels, and thus far I’m not impressed.  I got about  1/3 of the way through The She-Hulk Diaries, and completely gave up.  The author is quite fond of using the term OMG.  OMG should only be used in the rarest of cases, and certainly not as the way you start nearly every sentence two or more of your characters say.  I’ve read books with shallow characters before, but the author barely even tried to cobble together a personality for the heroine, let alone any of the secondary characters.  Honestly, I don’t have high expectations for chick-lit.  I expect fluff, and average writing.  These are two things that should not have been hard for the author to accomplish.  However,  I spent the better part of the week trying to get somewhere in the book, constantly telling myself that it had to get better, I finally threw my hands up in frustration and went running back to the safety of Jim C. Hines’ Goblin trilogy.

 

I’ll take Jig the Goblin and his fire spider any day over a menagerie of vapid characters unable to think about anything more important than a smoothie.