Monday, January 28, 2013

Review: Blaze (or Love in the Time of Supervillains)

Blaze (or Love in the Time of Supervillains)
By: Laurie Boyle Crompton
Release Date: February 1, 2013

Description:
Blaze is tired of spending her life on the sidelines, drawing comics and feeling invisible. She's desperate for soccer star Mark to notice her. And when her BFF texts Mark a photo of Blaze in sexy lingerie, it definitely gets his attention. After a hot date in the back of her minivan, Blaze is flying high, but suddenly Mark's feelings seem to have been blasted by a freeze-ray gun, and he dumps her. Blaze gets her revenge by posting a comic strip featuring uber-villain Mark the Shark. Mark then retaliates by posting her "sext" photo, and, overnight, Blaze goes from Super Virgin Girl to Super Slut. That life on the sidelines is looking pretty good right about now...

Review:
Every now and then you get a book and you can’t help but constantly stare at the cover because it looks so cool, and then the title of the book also just as good as the cover. But then you read the description and you think alright this is definitely something I want to read, because I’ve never read anything on the subject of comics or as much of a fan girl as this book was, and it didn’t disappoint at all. The cover was great, the characters, and the story were all around good.  It was a quick read essentially about a girl who just wants a guy to notice her.


We meet Blaze who is a complete nerdy comic book fan girl, I can totally imagine her in my head, the way she acts, talks everything. She’s fighting hard to get away from this pseudo soccer mom role she’s been thrown into because of her parents divorce and attempt actually getting a life of her own and she plans on starting with getting the attention of Mark, the super sexy coach of her brother’s soccer team. Finally she gets his attention and everything seems to be going great between them. Even if they really only had one date so far, but her brother is constantly trying to warn her, but let’s face it who’s going to listen at that age.

Eventually things go south between the two of them and Blaze who is completely hurt decides to retaliate by making a comic book of the whole situation, calling him Mark the Shark. She’s hurt and broken, but her comic sells off the shelf and everyone loves it that is except Mark. This is where he in turn retaliates but somehow it gets completely blown out of proportion that not even he can stop what is happening to Blaze. It’s unfortunately that there is so much bullying going on in schools, and I don’t know how but throughout the chapters where Blaze is repeatedly bullied by other students never once do you notice any teachers trying to stop them, this is the saddest part.

She decides to run off to meet her dad, trying to run away from her problems and start fresh but if she would have listened to her brother in the first place she would have realized it was not worth her time and effort. It’s sad to see this realization for her, but it was necessary for her to finally move on and agree with everyone around her that they were right about her father. This is also a really pivotal scene where you can see just how much Josh really does love his sister.  Family is an important part of our lives and we should always respect them, even if we don't completely agree with them.

There were several lessons that I think Blaze learned throughout the book. She learned that sometimes looks can be deceiving; she learned that one the hard way and in relation to her father as well. She also learned the hard way that sometimes retaliation is not worth it, after all look where it got her. And most importantly I believe she shouldn’t rush into things she doesn’t’ know anything about, she seemed very naive in the beginning of the book. But overall I really enjoyed it and it really started picking up half way through the book so much so that I had to finish it the same day.

Really great overall characters and realistic events that could easily happen to some people, maybe not all at the same time, but who knows it might. Great book and I can’t wait to see what the author has in store for us next time.
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Contact the Author:

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/LaurieBoyleCrompton
website http://lboylecrompton.com/
twitter username: @lbcrompton

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Disclaimer:
I received this book from NetGalley and Sourcebooks, so that I may give my honest opinion and a review. Whether it is good or not please do not let it discourage you from purchasing/reading the book yourself and forming your own opinion. What might be good for me may not be good for you and vice versa. With that said, Happy Reading Everyone!!!

1 comment:

Sim Carter said...

I absolutely agree with you! The cover and the title are really spellbinding. Just BLAZING fresh, right? And the subject matter, the setting seem fresh too. So glad it didn't disappoint!