Laura in Bookland: Review: Blaze (or Love in the Time of Supervillians) by Laurie Boyle Crompton

Blaze (or Love in the Time of Supervillains) by Laurie Boyle Crompton

Release Date: February 1st 2013
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Format: Paperback
Pages: 309
Source: My Collection/Edelweiss
Author: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads
Buy it: Amazon
Add it: Goodreads

Blaze is tired of spending her life on the sidelines.

All she wants is for Mark the Soccer Stud to notice her. Not as Josh's weird sister who drives a turd-brown minivan. And not as that nerdy girl who draws comics.

What she gets is her very own arch-nemesis.

Name: Mark Deninger, aka Mark the Shark

Occupation: Soccer star and all-around lady killer

Relationship Status: Serial ater

Group Affiliation: No loyalty

Known Superpowers: Anti-girlfriend force field, breaking hearts

Mark may have humiliated Blaze supervillian-style, but what he doesn't know is how geek girls always get revenge.

#GeekGrlzRevenge

First off, don’t read the synopsis from Goodreads, it tells pretty much everything that happens and it’s sort of a spoiler.

This book was a little slow to start, and right off the bat it was sort of driving me crazy with the comic book sound effects that were sprinkled in almost everywhere. Thank goodness that tapered off and I think I sort of got used to it as the book went on. I also wasn’t the biggest fan of her referring to her van as Superturd throughout the whole book. I understand it but I’m not sure it was necessary. I did however enjoy that the talks about the old comic books and the comic sketches that were scattered throughout the book. That added a neat touch.

This book follows around Blaze, named after her dad’s favorite comic book guy, Ghost Rider or Johnny Blaze. Speaking of her dad, he has run off to New York to pursue his acting dreams. He doesn’t call or come around because of a dispute between him and her mom. So Blaze is left in charge to make dinner and drive her brother, Josh, to soccer games while their mother works.

It is at these soccer outings that she meets Mark, or aka Mark the Shark. She desperately wants to be with him and when fate puts him in her car she takes a chance. Then her friends decides to send a text of her in some lingerie and all of sudden Mark is super interested in her.

This of course causes a riff in her friendship. I also didn’t like her friends or the major slut-shaming of another student. She had a rich friend that made a move on every guy she liked and another one who constantly asked to have her stuff. Blaze makes numerous bad decisions which was a bummer because I liked her in the beginning of the book.

Despite all the warnings from her brother and even the fact that he has the nickname Mark the Shark already, she continues to try and date him. When things don’t go quiet as planned with Mark she decides to get some revenge on him by putting out a comic book that becomes pretty popular throughout the small town. In turn, Mark puts out the picture of Blaze taking her form Super Virgin Girl to Super Slut girl overnight.

The quickness that people turn on her and start calling her names is a little unbelievable to me. Even people that don’t know her completely turn on her. This of course leads to rumors upon rumors that aren’t true and just fuel the fire. A simple call to the police would have gotten the picture taken down, especially when the school finds out, however it is just thrown out as a simple case of bullying.

All the while this is happening she is trying to rekindle a relationship with her father who doesn’t have a second of time to spare for her or her brother.

In the end I didn’t love this book but I did like it. The author’s writing has some potential and I can see myself possibly picking up her future works.

My Rating: