American Goddesses

American Goddesses
by Gary Henry
(3/5 stars)

I remember when I pitched my superhero novel (A Hero's Journey) to an agent and she expressed concern the book was "too far out there." I wish I'd had a copy of this to show her and say, "Now THIS is 'out there!'" I mean a central part of the plot is a Russian psychic possessing a superhero in order to rape the superhero's husband. Yuck.

Even with the rape scene I would have liked the book better if the heroes had at least the intellect of Forrest Gump. Instead they both come off like morons. And there's something misogynist about how the one is a naive fool and the other uses her powers mostly to nag her husband about his drinking. A husband, who incidentally cheats on her the first time we see him and yet the rest of the book we're supposed to believe how much in love they are.

Then the plot is resolved by introducing a bunch of new characters at around the 80% mark so it has a real deus ex machina feel. And then at the end it turns into "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

It's just a mess of a story, but at least the writing isn't littered with as much terrible grammar and typos as you might expect from a self-published book.

That is all.