A review by Nalini Haynes
Hostage Girl, aka Gail, has set records for being taken hostage more times than any other human alive. Blaze, the superhero who regularly comes to her rescue, has green eyes suspiciously like Gail’s boyfriend… who dumps her while she’s in hospital. Jeremy, aka asshat bf, is taking off for greener pastures: in this case, Miami.
Eight months later, Gail is hard at work covering for her slacker useless co-workers when she decides to take a rare break and grab a coffee only to be taken hostage. Again. For the first time in 8 months.
Dr Mobius is as twisty as his namesake. He keeps Gail unconscious, pumping her full of drugs to which he intends her to become terminally addicted.
Then she ends up in Superhero land on the other side of the paradigm.
Superheroes Anonymous doesn’t just pass the Bechdel Test, it crushes it and comes back for more. Here we have superhero equity — race and gender — and we’re seeing the community from Gail’s point of view so we have lots of girl-chats. In between Angelique beating up Gail as part of Gail’s training. Gail also socks a guy in the belly — slamming him into the opposite wall even though he’s a superhero himself. These women don’t mess around, they’re just as hard-core as the guys.
And the guys are alternately asshats, gorgeous and keepers depending on who you’re looking at. Romance is a thing although life-and-death circumstances take priority, as they should. And there are no women flailing their hands in the air and screaming uselessly here — unless they’re ‘civilians’, in which case both the men and women run away equally well.
Showing us a bit more sass and verbally-combatative comedy would have been fun instead of talking about it.
Superheroes Anonymous ends mid-way, as if someone got the story and chopped it into at least two pieces. This wouldn’t be a problem but Edelweiss and/or Adobe Digital Editions won’t let me read my review copy of Supervillains Anonymous so I’m pissed. The awesome people at HarperCollins have tried sending my review copy through several times but it just ain’t happening. 
The good news is, the sequel is out already even though I haven’t read it. Yet.
I’m giving Superheroes Anonymous 3 and a half stars. Feisty fighting females rock. More please.
Rating: 
3.5 out of 5 stars
ISBN: 9780062369116
ISBN 10: 0062369113
Format: ebook, 336 pages
Publisher: HarperVoyager Impulse (HarperCollins)
