The Girl Who Would Be King

by Kelly Thompson

Hardcover available only at: thegirlwhowouldbeking.com

Summary:

Separated by thousands of miles, two young women are about to realize their extraordinary powers which will bind their lives together in ways they can't begin to understand.

Protecting others. Maintaining order. Being good. These are all important things for Bonnie Braverman, even if she doesn't understand why. Confined to a group home since she survived the car accident that killed both her parents, Bonnie has lived her life until now in self-imposed isolation and silence; but when an opportunity presents itself to help another girl in need, Bonnie has to decide whether to actually use the power she has long suspected she has. Power that frightens her.

Across the country, Lola LeFever is inheriting her own power by sending her mother over a cliff...literally. For Lola the only thing that matters is power; getting it, taking it, and eliminating anyone who would get in the way of her pursuit of it. With her mother dead and nothing to hold her back from the world any longer, Lola sets off to test her own powers on anyone unfortunate enough to cross her. And Lola's not afraid of anything.

One girl driven to rescue, save, and heal; the other driven to punish, destroy, and kill.

And now they're about to meet.

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Superheroes, Fiction, Urban Fantasy, Ebooks, Science Fiction

367 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

KELLY THOMPSON has a degree in Sequential Art from The Savannah College of Art & Design. Her love of comics and superheroes have compelled her since she first discovered them as a teenager. Currently living in Portland, Oregon with her boyfriend and the two brilliant cats that run their lives, you can find Kelly all over the Internet where she is generally well liked, except where she's detested.

Kelly has published two novels - THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING (2012) and STORYKILLER (2014) and the graphic novel HEART IN A BOX from Dark Horse Comics (2015). She's currently writing ROGUE & GAMBIT, HAWKEYE, and PHASMA for Marvel Comics and GHOSTBUSTERS for IDW. Other major credits include: A-Force, Captain Marvel & The Carol Corps, Jem and The Holograms, Misfits, Power Rangers Pink, and the creator-owned mini-series Mega Princess.

Kelly's ambitions are eclipsed only by her desire to exist entirely in pajamas. Fortunately pajamas and writers go hand in hand (most of the time). Please buy all her stuff so that she can buy (and wear) more pajamas.

Reviews

[David - proud Gleeman in Branwen's adventuring party · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being a graphic-novel story told in a young-adult prose, The Girl Who Would Be King is a difficult book to categorize. Considering it's also a frustratingly bad story told through a wonderfully entertaining narrative, it turns out the book is difficult to review as well!

Two girls receive superpowers after the deaths of their mothers. Haunted by the tragic car accident that took her mother's life, Bonnie Braverman vows to use her powers to help people. In contrast, Lola LaFlame proactively obtained her powers by murdering her own mother. As you might have guessed, there's a bit of a philosophical difference between the two girls!

My understanding is that author Kelly Thompson self-published this book through Kickstarter.com after she was unable to find a publisher willing to back it. Unfortunately, the lack of a professional editor is obvious throughout the book. I really didn’t mind the multiple misspellings and grammatical errors. However, one thing that did distract me was the large amount of discrepancies on display here. While some authors have been known to contradict themselves later in a book, Thompson sometimes manages to do it on the same page. For instance, in one scene, Bonnie describes watching a co-worker walk enter a room and lie down on the floor. Moments later, when the co-worker gets up, Bonnie is startled to see how short the co-worker is, as this is the first time she ever saw her standing up…uhhh, did she crawl into the room when you watched her before, Bonnie?!? In another scene, Bonnie battles a group of thugs that number either 5 or 6, depending on which sentence you chose to believe.

In all fairness, misspellings and discrepancies wouldn’t be that big a deal so long as the story itself was compelling enough…which brings us to the much larger problem! The book is split up into narratives for both Bonnie and Lola. To Thompson’s credit, she tries to give both girls enough subplots to keep thing interesting. Unfortunately, Thompson tries to juggle too many things at once, leaving us with a very disjointed sequence of events that aren’t given enough time to play out in an effective way. Warning, mild spoilers ahead…nothing too major, but I’m using the spoiler tag just in case you don’t want to know any specific plot points before reading. Bonnie saves a young man’s life, and then instantly falls in love with him. Why? She just does! Often times information is revealed through casual offhanded remarks which suggest that the author meant to tell us these things before but then forgot! And then there are moments that just make no sense at all. In one scene, Lola reveals to a woman she just met that she killed her mother (why does Lola confess this to a complete stranger, you ask…she just does)! Does the woman inform the police or at least seem a bit nervous? Why, no, she just casually sets up an appointment for her & Lola to talk some more! The snarky side of me would love to describe all the parts of this story that don’t make sense, but I’m pretty sure GoodReads reviews have a 1,000,000 character limit!

So, up until now, it sounds like I should have only given this book two or even one star. However, despite its flaws (and there are many), I still managed to have a lot of fun reading this book! Lola’s segments are particularly entertaining to read, as her acid tongue and sarcastic edge made me laugh on multiple occasions! Bonnie can be too whiny at parts, but when she does manage to shine, her narrative reveals a very endearing person underneath all the angst. And as the book went along, I found that I appreciated a lot of Kelly Thompson’s variations on superhero themes. Ever find it too convenient that all cartoon villains just happen to be criminal masterminds? Well, Lola’s journey shows us what happens when a aspiring supervillain just isn’t smart enough to figure out how to take over the world! Thought it seemed silly when 15-year old Peter Parker instantly acclimated to his powers (and managed to invent web-shooters besides)? Well, Bonnie’s journey takes a more realistic approach, as she often struggles with managing her new powers. In fact, the first-person commentary is often so fascinating, that had the overall story been better, I could have easily given this book 5 stars!

While I applaud Kelly Thompson’s persistence in getting this book published, I wish she had taken a little more time developing her craft. This book is an overall good read, but I believe that in the hands of a more seasoned writer, this could have been an excellent read! While this book certainly isn’t for everyone, if you’re looking for a different take on superheroes and don’t mind a bit of fluff with your story, you may want to give this one a try.

[Cyna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've spent most of the night trying to sort out how I feel about this book, and I think the gist of what I've come to is "disappointed". I was really psyched for The Girl Who Would Be King. I'm a fan of the author's podcast; she seems like a sensible, gender-aware woman, and I was super-excited by the idea of a female-positive YA superhero book that could avoid all of the traps that make this genre so frustrating.

Also, that is an amazing cover. I mean goddamn, Stephanie Hans should do every cover. This is the same woman who did Journey Into Mystery covers too, omg.

Ahem. ANYWAY. The point is, my expectations were unusually high for this book, which is why, even though I wouldn't call it "awful", The Girl Who Would Be King was such a let-down. I was expecting something amazing, and while there is a good story in here, and there are things that I liked about it, there was also a disheartening amount of...flab.

I don't just mean "flab" in the sense of padding. I mean, yes, the book is three-hundred-some-odd pages of super-dense writing, and no, it doesn't need to be, but it's not just about that. It's all of it. When I say "flab", I mean, like, untrained muscle. There's so much in this book that could have been amazing if it had been more focused, honed to a finer point, crafted with more deft skill. It's in dire need of a good pruning.

One of the problems that's really clear in retrospect is that there's not a whole hell of a lot going on, here. Which isn't to say the book is devoid of stuff happening, or even action - in fact, there's actually some really good action towards the end - but what it is completely devoid of are twists, turns, and dramatic tension. What you read in that summary, up there? That's exactly what you get from The Girl Who Would Be King.

The obvious object, the essential premise of the book, is that these girls embodying these opposing forces will fight. That's what it's building up to: one big, powerhouse showdown, and that's fine, I guess, but I expected...more. Some sort of twist, a play, like maybe the girl who is compelled to maintain order would go all Justice Lord overboard with it, and only the freedom-loving "bad girl" could stop her. But it quickly became clear that wasn't going to happen; it's straight black and white, chaotic evil vs. lawful good, arbitrary compulsion to save vs. arbitrary compulsion to kill.

The thing is, once you come to understand that there will be no subversion of that expectation, all that's left is the confrontation. Lola vs. Bonnie. You know it's coming, and that inevitability just makes you that much more aware of how long the road to get there is. I spent the book glancing at my watch, so to speak, going "Okay, yes, that's fine, but when are they going to meet?"

What I'm trying to say here is that there isn't really a "plot". No particular obstacles to overcome, no villains to uncover, no motives to discover - just the daily lives of two girls who will inevitably fight. The closest we get to a mystery is the question of what the girls are/where their power comes from, and that...well, that whole mythology opens up another can of worms that I'll talk about later. What I'll say now is that, while it provided some of the more interesting segments of the book, it was far too sporadic and thin to keep a book that long going.

So, not a lot of plot. Which, I suppose, isn't exactly necessary. You could argue that it's a character study, and you would probably be right, and that would be fine, except that, as a character study, it is utterly done in by the writing.

I've said before that I'm not a prose Nazi, okay, and it's true. Not like that's something to be proud of, and I'm trying to work on it, but being up front, I just don't really notice bad or awkward writing unless it is really bad or awkward.

The writing in this book is really awkward.

The word that kept coming to my mind was "fumbling". I felt like the words that were being strung together here were often clumsy and imprecise. I can't really explain it better than that. Sorry. Part of that might have been the tone, which was casual to the max, but I think more of it is owed to the super-frickin'-tell-y writing style.

This is actually a problem that I've run into with first-person perspective YA in general - it seems like so many books use that as an excuse to dump the character's every single innermost feeling on us without an ounce of subtlety. "I felt sad, I felt happy, I felt slightly perturbed that my coffee was only lukewarm", blah blah blah. It usually goes hand-in-hand with that conversational mess of a storytelling style, where even when the protagonists are actually experiencing things, it feels like they're just telling you about it in some sort of third-hand, relayed experience. You know what happened, what they did, and how they felt, and yet you still end up feeling detached from it all. Which I'm pretty sure is the polar opposite of the first-person perspective's goal.

The Girl Who Would Be King has exactly that problem, and makes it worse by frequently compressing long periods of time and activity into actual summaries that can last for pages. I understand that the book covers months of the main characters' lives - years, in Bonnie's case - and that you can't chronicle every single day, but there are literally paragraphs of straight-up telling. This is important stuff! These are character developments, and oh god, relationship developments that happen totally off screen, and we're still expected to care about them?

For example...

Read full review at You're Killing.Us.

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is going to be a rough review, because it's been approximately a year since I last read this book. I wasn't writing reviews on Goodreads at the time, but there's been some new interest in this title so I thought I'd post some quick thoughts on it before rereading it for a more detailed review.

First, there are some things to be aware of:

• This novel is self-published and, as a result, has more errors than you'll usually find in something from a major publisher.

• This novel was self-published because no one could figure out how to market it.

• This novel is violent. Really violent. Extremely violent. Disturbingly violent.

• This novel has some sex. Not a lot, and it's not especially explicit, but it's there.

• The protagonist and antagonist of this novel are teenage girls. With super powers. Having consensual sex with age-appropriate males. And engaging in some extreme violence. (See the second bullet point.)


Okay, that gets the basic stuff out of the way. Another technical detail to be aware of is the fact that this novel is written in alternating first-person perspective. Some people don't like first-person. A lot of people don't like alternating first-person. I am one of those people, and yet I love this book. This story isn't just about the hero's journey to face the villain; it's also about the villain's journey to face the hero. They share the spotlight, and you'll be glad they did. Lola LeFever, our antagonist, is one of the most fascinating villains I've ever encountered.

In fact, she gets her own paragraph in this review right now. Lola is self-aware, self-actualized and self-assured...when she's not beating herself up, comparing herself to her nemesis, or wondering whether or not she should be murdering henchmen. Okay, she never really wonders about the last one; they're just henchmen. What the author created with Lola is remarkable, though, or at least it was for me. She created a villain that grew more and more despotic, more and more out of control, and somehow humanized her enough that a significant portion of my brain was rooting for her. The crimes this young woman committed were frequently horrific (an understatment), and yet she somehow manifested an aura of tragedy and frailty in a number of scenes that made me want to protect her. Kelly Thompson convinced me that there was a soul trapped inside the monster.

Bonnie, on the other hand, was a little more straightforward, a little less nuanced. She, like Lola, was self-aware. She, like Lola, was self-actualized. She, unlike Lola, was pretty much fated to be the vanilla hero. This isn't to say she wasn't relatable, though, because nothing could be further from the truth. One of the neatest tricks that the author pulled was remembering what it was like to be a teenager on the cusp of adulthood and infusing her characters with burgeoning confidence and occasional insecurity and inexperience without ever making them feel as if they were either 12 or 25. Also, the punching through walls thing. Anyway, Bonnie. I liked Bonnie. I didn't want Bonnie to lose. But I loved Lola, or at least a part of her. I wanted Lola to win.

Now, some reviewers have complained that, since we know from the very beginning that this whole book is heading toward a big battle between Bonnie (woo, alliteration!) and Lola, there's no mystery to keep the reader interested. I disagree, and it has to do with the alternating first-person I mentioned. We get to watch fascinating parallels between two lives occur, and there's a beautiful symmetry to it. We see Bonnie fall in love with a boy, and then we see Lola's disastrous romance. We see Bonnie battling insecurity by keeping a low profile in a bookstore, and we see Lola battling insecurity by robbing a jewelry store. This isn't a destination book -- although I thought the destination was well done if freaking depressing -- this is a journey book. This is every bit as much about watching the two leads move toward that distant point as it is about the battle they have when they finally arrive. Knowing who they are and what they've been through is what makes that battle so big, not the devastation they inflict on skyscrapers and the National Guard.

I really like this book. A lot. I'm absolutely biased, though. I don't usually get to read books about young women who are calling all the shots. I don't usually get to read books about young women who feel like they really are young women rather than old children. I don't usually get to read books where young women are the only super heroes in the story. I rarely get to read stories where teen sexuality isn't demonized or glamorized. I never get to read stories where all of the above is true. And I have never, ever, met anyone like Lola LeFever before.

Maybe it's that bias speaking, but I rate this one: 5 stars.


Edit: Also, come on! That cover is ridiculously gorgeous! You should totally judge the book by that.

Edit2: Maybe I won't write a more detailed review. If I add another line of text to this thing, it might bring down the Goodreads servers.

[Journey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Last night, as I neared the end of the book, my girlfriend asked me what I was reading. I told her and said "I'm not sure I like it." That was around 90% through. Now I've finished and I'm still not sure I like it. I think it was an entertaining story, but the flaws might override that.

I didn't realize it was self-published at first but it explains a bit. I think there's an ellipses in every other sentence, which gets really obnoxious. The suspension of disbelief went too far for me. Very minor non-story ruining spoilers ahead: Superhuman strength and speed? That's believable. Fast healing? Okay. Now you can cleanse your body of drugs just because you think it? You decide you should be able to fly and you can? Hmmm not so much. If it had been there from the start or something really learned, I'd believe it. But the "I can do this ridiculous stuff because I think I should be able to" doesn't work for me. ALSO, both girls fall in love with a boy immediately after meeting him. UGH one of my top pet peeves. I also hate the ending. The ending before the "eight months later" would have been perfect, imo. The ending after that makes the whole thing pointless.

That said I find the concept really interesting and it's definitely a book where I wish it had been better written because I want to like it! I generally don't like villains, but I actually would have liked to see more about Lola's development. The relationship with her and Liz was fantastic and I hate how little of it there actually was. You see this kind of relationship all the time when the villain is a male, but I don't think I've EVER seen a female supervillain capture a woman and slowly warm to her, while the captured woman also slowly begins to like her. I would have liked to see Lola's feelings develop further (I think she definitely had feelings for Liz) and Liz become more than a resigned captive with a bit of fondness for her captor; I would have died of happiness if Liz became the actual willing brains behind the operations, letting Lola treat her to shopping trips but smugly knowing the money they're spending is just as much hers. But instead, Liz died and Lola went crazy :(

[Seeley James · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Girl Who Would Be King — by Kelly Thompson $2.99 E

This book is better than Hunger Games. A hell of a lot better. More exciting, more innovative, more fascinating. And yet Traditional Publishers won’t touch it. Why? Because it doesn’t fit their formula. It has no genre, no shelf at B&N, no section in the library. It doesn’t fit neatly in a marketing plan.

They can’t handle it.

But you can.

The Girl Who Would Be King is not a Young Adult title. It’s not an action adventure, or a thriller or a romance or a this or a that. It’s a surprise and an addiction and a romp and a guessing game. You cannot predict what the characters will do on the next page—because you have not read a book like this.

You need this book.

Why? Because you’re smart.

You’re not interested in reading another mystery-by-numbers book: the dead body in the locked room with three suspects and a bloody knife. Those are simple books for simple times. You want a book that is so innovative the mystery involved is not ‘who dunnit’ but rather: WTF is Kelly Thompson going to write on the next page?

This book is long. This book has typos. This book could use a professional editor. But none of that will bother you no matter what kind of editor-nazi you are when you read other books—rules don’t apply to something this original. When you read this book, you know you’re reading something extraordinary. You know you’re reading an archetype.

President Ronald Reagan coined the phrase “unputdownable” when he endorsed Tom Clancy’s first book. It was hyperbole. And every book since has carried that non-word somewhere on the jacket. The Girl Who Would Be King is different. It’s a siren. Homer’s kind of siren. You put the book down, grab your keys, but you stop because you hear that siren singing. You shake it off, you head to the car and there it is again, the siren-book singing to you, ‘come read another page; just one’. You stop three steps from the front door … because the siren’s song is irresistible. You look at your watch. Yeah, sure, you can squeeze in just one more page. The next thing you know, you’re holding your phone three inches from your ear while your boss shrieks, “You don’t have any more sick days!”

Wrecked on the rocks of Anthemusa. You can only hope someone like Penelope is waiting for you. If not... at least you have a good book with you.

Here’s another thing to add to the list of things that are awesome about TGWWBK: You can’t wait to read the ending that you don’t want to end. You want to know what happens, but you want to keep reading. You want more. There has to be more. Even my cynical wife (who wasn’t cynical until after our wedding—predictably) was surprised by the epilogue.

In every book I read, I highlight like an adoring fan. I seek out unique passages that might define the book or the writing. In this book I highlighted more than usual. A lot more. TGWWBK is full of unique passages that change the way we look at characters. From the lowliest minor characters, to the sidekicks and historical characters, everyone has great scenes. Whether they have delusions of grandeur or realizations of grandeur is irrelevant. They just say things in a new and refreshingly different voice.

How about telling mom how you really feel?

“…I only hope that I can go on to the greatness I expect of myself despite the pathetic standards you’ve set for me.”

Or, this passage about jealousy:

“…If you keep acting like you lost something you actually wanted people are going to realize that you’re not the most beautiful person to ever operate a cash register.”

Or this gem of impatience:

“What?” I ask, not looking up. He tries to speak but has no breath. “Moe, you’ve got twelve seconds to come up with a sentence and it better not start with ‘um’.”

See? You need to read this book. It’s the kind you can get lost in for a long time and come back to for re-reads. But consider the season and be generous: buy several copies and give them out as presents. Your friends will think you’re awesome. You might even start a list.



Peace, Seeley



Special NOTE: MY REVIEWS ARE MY REACTIONS TO THE BOOKS I READ and not a response to the voices in my head. I have no relationship, financial or familial, with the authors. I do not expect, but would not refuse, any reciprocal reviews or recommendations. Just sayin.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a weird week, finishing this and Divergent. On one hand you've got a mercilessly marketed NY Times bestseller, on the other a Kickstarter-backed YA-ish novel that didn't find a publisher.

One note about the differences: In Divergent, Tris has a weird relationship with an older dude in a position of power who smacks her around in public, then confesses the leavings of his wounded soul in private. In this book, you have two separate female protagonists--granted, both slightly older teenagers--who seem aware of their relationships with their respective male romantic interests, even if those relationships aren't exactly perfect. There's actual intent, which is kind of nice. Plus there's sex, whereas in Divergent they skirt the issue (and the male romantic interest is--surprise!--a secretly sensitive and emotional virgin). I haven't read that much YA until recently, since my concentration has been shot and I've just wanted something entertaining to read. But I've been unilaterally impressed by the rapey, dominating relationships the female leads have with their men, which I don't remember being the case when I was actually in the age range for books like these.

Anyway, on its own this book is pretty fun. Yes, it did remind me of American Gods. It gleefully shows its seams on occasion, ricocheting between emotional realism and comic book-style craziness on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis. It's no secret that Lola (the "bad" one) is way more engaging than Bonnie (the "good" one). Lola's dialogue is funnier and her scenes are more interesting, although this book takes the violence associated with both characters to dark places. (Here come comparisons again.) The Hunger Games had children bludgeoning each other to death, kids eating each other, kids ripping out each other's throats. But it's usually stated obliquely, as secondhand knowledge, without the emotional punch that you get when you're casually introduced to a new, sympathetic character only to have that character disemboweled by the next chapter. Fair warning.

The mythological underpinnings of this were kind of expected for me, and the ending fell a little flat. But I had fun reading. No one could accuse it of being part of a homogenized publishing landscape. I'll be interested to know what the author's second novel will be like if/when she finds the right publisher for it.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Projects like this are why I love Kickstarter. The Girl Who Would Be King is a fun, well-written gem of a book, and if traditional publishers had the final word, it never would have seen the light of day. This book is admittedly difficult to classify-- it's a YA book that is somewhat longer and more "literary" than most YA books, and it also contains more sex, violence, and sci-fi elements than are normally seen in YA literature. Instead of brooding vampires, jealous werewolves, or teens struggling to survive the zombie apocalypse, this book features female superheroes doing both normal and super-heroic things. I can see why publishers were hesitant to take on this challenge (Established genre conventions! Marketing difficulties! Angry parents!), but that doesn't make it any less disappointing that they chickened out. At any rate, it's their loss and the Kickstarter backers' gain. In exchange for my pledge, I received an ebook, a print copy, and the satisfaction of supporting the author directly. Take that, traditional publishing!

I read a lot of YA books, some for pleasure and some for work (I'm a librarian). In my opinion, the best teen books are difficult to categorize specifically because they don't fit the mold. Looking out on the teen lit publishing landscape, I see a lot of Twilight/Hunger Games/Percy Jackson knockoffs. They may follow the genre conventions, and they probably sell fairly well, but there's nothing unique or original about them. The Girl Who Would Be King is a totally original concept, and without giving anything specific away about the ending, this could EASILY be the first book in a series (although I would settle for a sequel). However, traditional publishers thought that we needed another vampire romance or dystopian trilogy more than we needed this book. I strongly disagree, and I suspect you will too. I highly recommend this book for mature teens, fans of strong female characters, comic book enthusiasts, and anyone who enjoys solid YA lit that doesn't follow all the rules.

[Wilmar Luna · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I read about the concept to this book, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. I opened the book and read the first paragraph which was entirely in 1st person perspective. I didn't mind that it was in 1st person, but what was starting to bother me was the fact that it was written in the voice of a 16 year old girl. I didn't think much of it, until I continued reading and realized...

The whole book was going to be written in the voice of a 16 year old girl. One boring (the hero)and one annoying.

To put it simply, the book made me cringe at times and wasn't very exciting for a book about super powered beings.

1.) The term 'superhero' is overused and extremely campy when utilized. Every time Bonnie would say something like, "This must be what it's like to be a super hero." Or when she says, "Superheroes would never do that." I couldn't help but cringe while rolling my eyes, who talks like that? The writing reminded me of what I would see come out of a 6th grader, unrefined, cheesy and unrealistic, even for a 16 year old.

2.) I'm sorry, but I didn't like Lola very much. All the reviews are just piling heaps of praise as to how great Lola is, but I found her to be extremely annoying. The fact that she couldn't come up with her own schemes and spent portions of the book milling around doing nothing was just, such a waste of paper. I have a pet peeve against people who do nothing, and Lola was a do nothing for a good chunk of the book. She felt childish but not in the endearing way, I just really did not enjoy reading Lola's passages. With the exception of Liz, who was a great character and someone I enjoyed reading. Bonnie was duller than dirt, so you know there's a problem when you don't enjoy reading from the 1st person perspectives of the 2 characters.

This book really should have been in 3rd person, trying to write a fight scene when you're taking the perspective of two characters just doesn't work and it showed.

3.) There's just way too much time spent on these girls thinking about boys. The girls are just constantly swooning over their male love interests throughout a chunk of the book, but the love just didn't feel real. It didn't feel genuine and I couldn't see why these girls even wanted to be with these guys, asides from good looks. Where was the action? Where are the super powered fight scenes and dramatic rescues? The action scenes that were present in the book, were poorly written and not very engaging. For a book that was supposed to be about super heroes, anything that involved super powers was very generic and obviously not a focus. The constant attention given to the boys made me think I was reading a superhero version of Twilight.

4.) Over use of neck breaking, seriously... I lost count how many times someone has gotten their neck broken. If it was a signature move, I could understand the over use. One reviewer said that the book moves at "break neck speed" that reviewer was clearly not talking about speed, but by how many times a character gets their neck broke. In fact, the book moved quite slowly with a whole lot of nothing going on. Lola wandering around doing nothing, Bonnie trying to figure out her purpose in life and who she is, but really just doing nothing. Anything that did happen was terribly boring.

5.) Self description in the mirror! Of all the things NOT to do, this book commits the cardinal sin of having one of the characters describe themselves in the mirror. I don't think anyone would look in the mirror and describe themselves as, "lithe." Even people who are vain wouldn't describe themselves the way this book did. At most they would say, "You look gorgeous." Never would they be talking about how long their legs are or what color their hair is. Maybe they'd think about coloring it, but the self description was just awful.

6.) There's just simply no pay off in this book anywhere. There's nothing that made me gasp or made me think that it was clever. The girls meeting up for the first time is anti climactic and just really badly written. Again, had this book been written in 3rd person perspective, this probably would have been a different review.

Overall, although some of the dialogue and wording felt like what a 16 year old kid would say, I didn't want to read a whole book told in this manner. I felt no connection to the characters and not because they were female, but because they didn't have anything interesting to say. If I had to talk to Bonnie in an elevator, I don't think anything would be said. Not because she likes to pretend to be mute, but because she has no personality whatsoever. With Lola it'd be the opposite, she'd be someone I would want to get away with, not because she's a psycho killer, but because she's annoying to listen to.

Maybe I'm not a fan of Young Adult, but this book was just too childish and boring for my tastes. I wanted to like it, I really did, but this just wasn't my cup of tea.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

In case you don't know, I am what you would call a superhero fan-girl, and I love all things comic book related. Unfortunately, while I've read my fair share of comics, I haven't read that many actual novels about superheroes - only Perry Moore's Hero and Superman: Last Son of Krypton by Elliot S! Maggin. That's why I was beyond ecstatic to hear about this book while browsing through Kickstarter.

The Girl Who Would Be King tells the story of two very different girls: Bonnie Braverman and Lola LeFever. Bonnie is an orphan who survived the car crash that killed her parents at the tender age of six. She grew up in an orphanage, and moved to New York City as soon as she turned eighteen. I absolutely adore Bonnie - she's a hard worker, has a kind heart, and when she finds out about her abilities, she decides that she wants to use them to help people. Bonnie also goes through her fair share of struggles, including trying to balance being a superhero, working at a bookstore, and having time to spend with her friends and boyfriend.

Lola, on the other hand, finds no pleasure in helping or being around others. Instead, the novel opens with a sixteen-year-old Lola drugging her mother and driving her off of a cliff in order to steal her powers. She then runs off to Vegas, and later Los Angeles, where she commits various crimes and murders. While Lola may not have grown up knowing how to trust others, she does take a stab at trying to find love and friendship - but those relationships usually end in Lola killing more people, to the point where she becomes rather insane. I found that Lola's descent into madness was quite fascinating, and I enjoyed reading from her perspective.

And yes, this novel is told from both Bonnie's and Lola's perspective - I love it when authors choose to alternate viewpoints in a story. There are so many things going on in the lives of those two girls that this book never got boring - it was a very quick read. And once Bonnie and Lola finally met and battled, the story became so gripping that I could not put it down.

Kelly Thompson wrote a fantastic first novel, and I'd recommend The Girl Who Would Be King to anyone - especially those of you who enjoy comic books or superheros in general. I will warn you that there are some typos (at least in the printed version), but while there are enough to be noticeable, they don't detract from the story at all, and there weren't enough to really be a big bother. I truly loved reading this book, and I hope Ms. Thompson decides to put out more novels soon, as I would love to read more of her work! This definitely added any of her future books to my insta-buy list!

[Jessica Andersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It is told in first person by two different narrators. The switch between the two is noted by a small symbol, but once you're a little ways into the book you don't really need those markers. The voices are pretty different from each other.

The story is about two girls, one raised by a disinterested mother, the other raised in an orphanage from the age of 6. They both discover they have something that makes them more than other people. They can run faster, they're stronger, they heal from grievous injuries.

One is drawn to help other people. The other is driven to wipe out any competition.

The girls are like two sides of a coin. They are unaware of each other and both are searching for answers.

This book was hard to put down. I read the Kindle file from the kickstarter and there were a few editing or formatting issues. But there were only a couple that I noted and they didn't really detract from the story.

I would highly recommend this book and I hope Kelly Thompson is able to write more great stories!

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. It was a very different story. Though the back talks about the girls having "super powers" this is not (thankfully) a superhero story. There are two girls who are the opposite sides of the same power. One destined to be good the other bad. But what makes this such an interesting and great story is that despite being quite psychotic, and murdering many people Lola is such a wonderful and likeable character. There's a great realism to the two young women as they blunder through their lives and try and figure out who they are, how to relate to other people and how their powers shape their lives. Definitely one I'd highly recommend.

[Miranda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite some writing that needed a run through with a professional editor, some insta-love and some logic missteps, I really loved The Girl Who Would Be King. As I expected when I read the summary, it’s everything I want in a story: Two main female leads who end up being the other’s enemy, with the fate of the world in the balance, all told like a comic book in prose form. And let’s just say I wasn’t disappointed.

The story shifts between two POVs, Bonnie Braverman and Lola LeFever. Of the two, at first Lola’s narrative was the more interesting one. It does start off with her killing her mother, after all. But after a while, Bonnie caught up to her in the engrossing department, and they both held my attention throughout the book. In the end Lola’s story is the one that better subverts certain comic book tropes and narratives (like how the top supervillain is a criminal mastermind--not so, in this book.) Bonnie’s is a little more by the numbers, but it was still a solid story.

Although Bonnie’s story did have one major downside: Insta-love. Normally this would be a dealbreaker for me in a novel, but honestly the rest of it had me entertained enough that I was able to overlook the fact that the first time Bonnie sees Clark, she instantly knows she’s in love with him. The strength of Lola’s relationship with a guy named Adrian also made up for it, although I did buy Bonnie and Clark’s relationship once they began talking and really knowing each other.

I was glad that in the end, the narrative does point out the unfairness in how the paths have been chosen for these girls before they were even born. I was also happy to see that, while it does play the “one’s good, one’s evil” trope pretty straight (which is the point, as trying to subvert that would have gone against the world’s internal logic and mythology), the novel does show how they’re both capable of doing good or bad things. Lola can sometimes be not as bad as she ends up being, and she even falls in love at one point. Bonnie, likewise, is capable of some mean thoughts and not so nice things.

The pacing did suffer from being a little slow at times, and sometimes huge chunks of time were passed in a few paragraphs. I could see some readers being bored by reading the slow build up to the final act; up until then, Lola and Bonnie are entirely separate, on different sides of the country even, and the novel focuses on their day to day lives. It plays out very much like a superhero comic book, except it gets to be a bit longer due to the novel format it’s in. Personally it wasn’t an issue for me, because I love character driven books, but for others it might be a little dry.

The final act was really well done, and the resolution was satisfying, even if after a certain point it did become obvious that it was the only solution that could happen. For the most part, though, I wasn’t able to guess where the book was going, and that was a great thing. I read basically all of the book except for 80ish pages in one sitting, and I’m glad I had time to spare when I got to that ending.

As for the not so good parts, the writing in the book really did need a comb through with a professional editor. Sometimes a lot of sentences were clunky and confusing, in that I occasionally had to read something twice in order to understand what it meant. It wasn’t unreadable by any means, but it was definitely obvious that it hadn’t had someone to run through it with a trained critical eye.

There were also a lot of logic missteps: How were no cameras, at all, ever catching a glimpse of Bonnie? Especially when she doesn’t cover her face with anything. In New York City, it’s really hard to buy that not one place she was in had any kind of camera system, or that someone wouldn’t have pulled out their phone and taken video or a picture.

Likewise, Lola leaves fingerprints all over the place. At one point she even leaves a bloody handprint on the wall of a carnival performer’s trailer. I’m a little more willing to let that one slide, because who’s going to care about a murdered performer, but the rest was really hard to swallow at times.

The general mythology of the world--and how the powers worked--made sense... up until I began to wonder what would happen if one of the women only gave birth to one daughter, and that daughter happened to be gay. That doesn’t necessarily exclude her from having a child, sure, but what if she never did? Would the power pass on to the next girl in line? What if there wasn’t one? What if a woman simply did not wish to have children at all? How would that work, then? Otherwise it made sense, but those questions kept nagging at me a little while I read.

Really, though, I enjoyed The Girl Who Would Be King a lot. There needs to be more novels like this, frankly.

(See more of my reviews at On The Nightstand. A physical copy of this book was generously provided by the author for an honest review.)

[Fallon · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me 3 days to finish this book, and honestly it felt longer. Why? There is just so, so very much going on and it's not that it is bad, because it's not, it's just a lot! This book follows Bonnie Braverman and Lola LeFever in their journeys of self discovery and eventually their ultimate battle, which in a book about good and evil (guess which is which) you totally expect to see. This could be called nature vs. nurture, but there really isn't any nurture for either girl, so it's all instinct. These girls are born into a blood line that they spend the entire book trying to figure out, ok not necessarily their blood line, but who they are,why they are, and are they alone? There were several points that I just wanted to set this book down and give up, but I decided..no I've invested this much lets see where we go. Is this the best book ever? No, it's not the best, but it's intriguing and it's worth following though with. I think I would have much preferred this in comic format, I think it would have had a bigger impact in that format, and also reached a wider audience, because the story itself is brilliant. The imagery is wonderful and the author is clearly talented. I think this would have been a crazy epic & long comic book, but it would be spectacular. I love that Bonnie and Lola parallel in so many ways but just a few different decisions make the outcomes vary vastly. I will say that Lola is my favorite her spiral downward and the insanity that she sprials into is just really well done, you really can see the crazy, though Bonnie is pretty awesome too, the whole thing is really well done. It's really an amazing novel, I wish there were parts that didn't make me want to set the book down because of pacing, because I think that will kill a few readers. Trust me it's worth sticking with. I can't wait to see what else the author has put out there. Plus anyone who mentions Joss Whedon right off the bat is totally awesome in my book! :)

[Abi · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an okay read, quiet boring and confusing in areas though.

Bonnie and Lola are completely different from each other.
Lola is power hungry, and kills anyone who gets in her way. She thinks nothing of killing fourteen people, and goes on to kill more.
Bonnie uses her powers for good, defusing horrible situations, and even helping cats stuck in trees.

The story was quite slow in the beginning, and it took 60% to pass for the girls to actually meet.
When they did meet, it did make me interested for a few chapters.
Though, that's also when the info dumps started appearing, so it quickly made me bored.

The one thing i really liked, was the appearance of the little girl, Celia.
She was so adorable, telling her little story about her turtle.

[Matt King · Rating 4 out of 5]

The epilogue was a little predictable, and I'm pretty sure I never want to read the word "Um" in dialog ever again, but this book was fantastic. You could tell she was influenced by Whedon. Since when is that a bad thing, though? I'm dying to see what she comes up with next.

[Auntie M · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure where I heard of this book or why I bought it, but I did love it. It started out sorta slow, but then became a page-turner. Sometimes the back and forth between the two characters was jarring, but mostly it was interesting.

[Renee Valentine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Captivating

I couldn't stop reading. The take on a modern day superhero origin story was really good. The duality of the two women was interesting. I wouldn't mind reading a sequel.

[Lexie · Rating 5 out of 5]

All right folks I'll say it upfront, I helped fund this book through Kickstarter.  I also wanted the super duper deluxe edition with all the nifty extras which included everything from the Hardcover deluxe edition to so much swag I can't help but glory in it.  This in no way biased my opinion towards the material however.

Honestly speaking I signed up and helped fund this because the book is damn good.  Kelly Thompson takes superheroes, grief, growing pains and learning to adjust in a world that's treated you pretty badly from the start and mashes them together to create a cocktail of thoughtful, provoking writing.  Bonnie, who loses everything in the car crash that changed her life and Lola, who thought she could have everything if she changed her life, have parallel stories of grief and searching for answers that come to several encounters that neither walks away from completely.

Even more than how they chose different paths in regards to their powers, I think it was interesting as they learn about their mothers and the paths they chose.  We learn more of this from Bonnie's point of view passages then we do Lola's (which let me just say I think how Thompson denoted the different POV's was great. Subtle, yet very very effective).  Bonnie is much more driven to find out the nature of what's going on with herself (and by extension Lola), though Lola is more of a trial and error girl.  Their different approaches to figuring out their unique abilities are reflective of who they are.  Bonnie is cautious and likes to think things through, Lola is more instinct.  

The girls' journeys are parallels of each other.  Lola obtaining her 'power' and Bonnie leaving the Orphanage she grew up in happen at relatively the same time.  Though Bonnie has has her powers for longer, she didn't experiment with them too much so Lola is quicker on how to harness things.  They almost meet briefly, but go in completely opposite directions across the US.  Bonnie goes to NYC where she tries her best to make a life for herself (friends, place to live, boyfriend, job) and Lola goes to LA (eventually) where she does the same thing...just more violently.

While I rooted for Bonnie to win the day, I liked Lola.  Putting aside her kill first attitude, I could relate more to her at times.  Feeling let down by a parent, knowing there's something more to life but being unable to find it, finding it hard to find a 'friend'--I get that.  And even though Bonnie goes through much of that as well, it was Lola's mistakes that made her more relatable.  Even her mental instability after a tragedy was more relatable to me.

I'll warn that the epilogue is kind of like 'Ahaha no sunshine and rainbows for you!' kind of thing.  I wasn't keen at first, but it makes so much sense within the context of the story that I couldn't outright say I hated it.  Thompson is careful to make it clear that you can't have one without the other, that balance has to be maintained.  Also, every action has a consequence.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A real fun read. Great story from an up and coming author. I'm really glad that I backed this kick starter!

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could give this book a million stars, I want to marry it.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

The two young women at the center of this work of superhero fiction are emotional and psychological masterpieces in the absence of a curator.

Through the rumbling, what THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING is trying to tell its readership is fairly simple: traits of heroism and traits of despotism once thought inviolable and deterministic are mere table scraps; they are the leftover trash of a previous generation's half-honest and half-sycophantic desire for a better, more romantic way of life.

Extraordinary strength, advanced healing and invulnerability, and a sixth sense for when something is about to go right (or horribly wrong) are a few of the traits Bonnie Braverman and Lola LeFever share. Bonnie is an orphan whose lingering memory of her parents' fiery demise (and of her peculiar survival) sparks enough inquiry to push her from group-home shut-in to wayward café employee in NYC by age eighteen. In contrast, Lola, at sixteen, is a thief, truant, and murderer. She is woefully undereducated and conspires, as best she can, to take over the world if only with the quirky logic that nobody will tell her not to.

Thompson does a remarkable job of merging a more traditional cape-oriented tale of might with a more contemporary narrative of self-discovery. Indeed, the "hero's journey" may not have changed over last few thousand years, but heroes certainly have. And in THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING, the giving up of family, the dissolution of first love, and the self-serving knack for always wanting (needing) to do better at all things are what define Bonnie and Lola.

Post-modern superheroics are typically defined as much by what the protagonists don't do (or are not capable of doing) as by what they can do; defined, that is to say, by their limitations.

Bonnie excels when under pressure; however, she absolutely hates pressure. The young woman's anxiety is what possesses her to nearly cripple a schoolmate, assuredly endangers her estranged brother, and is the reason for her well-intentioned but ultimately incomprehensible pivot toward self-searching in the nation's largest city after leaving a rural group home.

A solid example of this drama would be a juncture in which Bonnie toes the line between saving innocent lives and finding happiness for herself (through a quiet dinner with her law-school boyfriend, Clark).

Bonnie is intelligent but inexperienced ("So far I'm terrible at this," p. 25), and yet, she always finds a way to insert herself into horrible situations, eager to make them better for those unable to do so for themselves ("It's hard to know what happy is if you're not sure if you've felt it before," p. 123).

Lola excels when she forgets to set expectations for herself. The lone child of a depressed, alcoholic hermit, Lola is the other side of the coin: she's eager but petulant; she's impossibly social and desires a connection but is resolved to dying alone; and although ambitious, Lola is dangerously ignorant of the consequences of her actions ("I should feel energized and powerful, invulnerable and potent, but all I feel is lost. [..] For someone so powerful I sure feel afraid a lot of the time," p. 109).

Lola is a young woman searching for all of the right things in life (belonging) through all of the wrong means (thievery, assault), with all of the wrong people (criminals, gang members), in all of the wrong places (Las Vegas, for one). Her hunger for supremacy feeds an epidemic of violence and wantonness that parallels any number of hero/villain stories in sequential fiction. She reminds readers of how thin the line truly is between angels and demons.

The first five or six pages of THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING are rough, but the story hits its dual-narrator stride soon thereafter. Bonnie and Lola's voices don't distinguish themselves for many sections/chapters later, but this doesn't hamper the book to the point where it's indecipherable. Both young women have experienced loss, and both young women process the psychological pangs associated with loss in their own way. Lola copes by supplementing her greed. Bonnie copes by fighting for others.

The book is structured into three acts (I, character adolescence; II, independence/enacting change; III, conclusion) but leans a little too heavily on an intermediate phase between the meat of first and the meat of second. There are more than 100 pages between the characters' emergence from adolescence (I) to when they feel free enough to discover their "purpose" in life (II) -- a thoroughly Odyssian length of time considering these are two characters in a purportedly eternal death war. War, of course, seems so far off while wandering around stealing jewels, working at bookstores, visiting a therapist, or spending energy on superfluous teenage love.

The book's concluding action and denouement are compressed into the final sixty or so pages, leaving readers with a dramatic final battle and not much else (the author explores Bonnie's family history but not Lola's, while simultaneously doing very little with what facts emerge from Bonnie's discovery).

THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING, in many ways, could have been two completely separate novels and prevailed just as well on the stories of these two characters and their struggle to understand who they are and why they exist. In fact, for much of the narrative, it feels just like that: two separate books. Whether bifurcating the story would have allowed for a better, fuller exploration of these characters' histories and open them up to more stable and believable emotional resolutions, however, is up in the air.

Lastly, THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING was not traditionally published, which means there are a handful of production tics that will surely drive professional editors mad. Grammar mishaps occur but are minimal. Notably, it is Thompson's penchant for internal dialogue, often crushing reader patience with heavy brushstrokes, which will put off a few individuals.

The easiest example, in this case, is to document paragraph length and its effect on pacing. There are multiple instances of gargantuan paragraphs consuming most of, if not whole pages of the book. There are also instances of character speeches dragging on just a little too long, and there are instances of Thompson's hyper-descriptive writing style accidentally taking off and leaving the substance of the story behind (emotional cognizance is great, except for when it fogs up the viewfinder and it's all the reader can see).

The ending is soft but does leave room for sharper, more cynical interpretations than is generally favored by the novel's primary character (Bonnie), which is interesting.

Altogether, THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING is a fine work of superhero fiction.

[mad mags · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Novel that Reads Like a Comic Book!

Bonnie Braverman and Lola LaFever are two young women, both orphans, standing on the threshold of adulthood. Though they don’t know it yet, they are two halves of the same whole: an ancient and powerful force, passed on down though the matrilineal line, which bestows upon its possessor (or possessed, as it were) god-like powers. The descendants of one blood line are driven to save, protect, and nurture; the other, to kill, destroy, and dominate. Their opposing existence ensures that there is balance in the world. But this equilibrium comes at great cost to those destined to maintain it.

The Girl Who Would Be King is an enjoyable story, and unique inasmuch as it’s a piece of prose that reads quite like a comic book. The battle scenes in particular call to mind images of black and white comic book panels; at times I could almost picture Bonnie shooting up into the atmosphere, an unconscious Lola in tow, or Lola ramming Bonnie through the walls of an office building. Reportedly author Kelly Thompson had trouble finding a publisher, since The Girl Who Would Be King was deemed “too violent” for the YA genre. But the violence contained within these pages is cartoonish and over-the-top; more disturbing is Lola’s rapid descent into madness. The language and sex are also rather tame, in keeping with the conventions of the genre.

The story’s greatest strength is in its characters, the bulk of which are women. Men are mostly absent and defined by their relationships to the protagonists – brother, boyfriend, roommate – in a happy inversion of conventional gender roles and representation. Women and their relationships with one another take center stage; as Bonnie and Lola attempt to navigate their social worlds, we get a glimpse of both nurturing and destructive female relationships. Whereas Bonnie mourns her mother, dead some twelve years at story’s outset, our first introduction to Lola is when she’s in the middle of murdering her own mother, Delia, in order to steal her power. Shy and riddled with guilt, Bonnie is just emerging from a decade of self-imposed muteness when she moves to New York City and forms a tentative friendship with coworker Liesel; Lola, on the other hand, kidnaps therapist Liz and coerces her into becoming her criminal advisor and “BFF.” Bonnie and Lola are mirror images of one another, reflections distorted and warped through a cruel and inflexible lens, and their opposing natures are further reflected in their connections with the women in their lives.

The Girl Who Would Be King owes its existence in part to a Kickstarter campaign. In hopes of self-publishing her first book, Thompson launched a fundraiser with the goal of $8000; 709 backers exceeded that number to the tune of $26,478. Clearly, this is something readers want more of: female-driven superhero stories with well-rounded (and practically outfitted) women characters. Thompson has most definitely succeeded in this regard. Are you listening, Hollywood?

In the con column, the story does drag a bit in the middle – but the double twist ending more than makes up for this. Bonnie and Lola sometimes read like caricatures of good and evil; but this is kind of the point, is it not? And of course, there’s also the question of believability, which Thompson addresses in a tongue-in-cheek (and vaguely Whedonesque) manner:

“A lot of stuff about you doesn’t make sense,” Liesel says. [To Bonnie, in reference to her seemingly innate ability to read a foreign language.] “I think we just have to accept that premise and move forward.” (page 300)

Like much good fiction, The Girl Who Would Be King might even compel you to research the historical roots of the story: searching for Banshees, Furies, and Valkyries on Wikipedia, perhaps, or checking out a book or two on the history of women warriors.

The paperback features a gorgeous cover with artwork by Stephanie Hans. Exclusively on the author’s website, you can also buy a limited edition hardcover copy, signed and numbered, with sixteen full-color, full-page illustrations. I wish I’d known this before I bought the paperback – I definitely would have sprung for the shinier copy!

http://www.easyvegan.info/2013/10/28/...

[Mikayla Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Newsflash; I am in love with this book!

After reading good things about The Girl Who Would Be King by Kelly Thompson while setting up my blog, I picked it for my second review, expecting to take a week or so to read and review it properly. Instead, I stayed up until the early hours of the morning reading because I simply could not put it down. It’s that good!

Featuring a pair of kickass female leads, TGWWBK tells the story of teenagers Bonnie Braverman and Lola LeFever, both gifted with god-like superpowers on the event of their mother’s deaths. While Bonnie is driven to help and protect, Lola is set on death and destruction. Drawn to each other by destiny and a history which goes far beyond the two of them, the two girls take very different paths with their powers, paths which collide in spectacular style in the lead up to the inevitable confrontation.

Dual protagonist novels are notoriously difficult to write and usually difficult to read without the temptation to skip pages. But to call TGWWBK a dual protagonist novel would be untrue. What Thompson has done is even trickier; tell two interwoven stories through the eyes of a protagonist and an antagonist. The story itself may not be ground breaking - it’s your classic good vs evil, with a helping of “teenager with magical powers” thrown in - but the characters of Bonnie and Lola are what makes this book come alive. Relatable even when they’re punching helicopters out of the sky or setting their broken bones, both girls are damn near close to character perfection. The inner dialogue and first person point of view storytelling paints each character with her own vivid personality, there’s certainly no danger that you’ll forget which character you’re reading! Thompson is a truly gifted author (one who makes me positively green with envy!) who does a fantastic job of writing in two distinct voices. There are symbols to tell you which girl is narrating, but you likely won’t need them. The care that's gone into creating these girls as three dimensional characters, rather than just "skins" that the reader can slip into to experience the story, is clear to see. There's also some fantastic artwork online which is worth checking out.

As with all novels that feature more than one lead character, it’s hard not to play favourites, but whether you lean towards good or evil, this book has you covered. Bonnie is your more traditional YA novel heroine. Her gift is her curse, and she takes a while to accept what she is and decide to use her powers for good. She’s introverted and guarded, but ultimately kind and selfless, rising up to become what she was born to be. Maybe it says something about me though that my favourite character was Lola. Hand on heart, I found her to be one of the finest characters to come out of YA lit in a long time. She begins the book by killing her own mother for her powers, then driving off to Vegas on a motorcycle with a black cat suit and a vague plan to set up an underworld empire. She’s twisted, she’s evil and she’s seriously screwed up, but good lord is she fun to read! Brutally honest (as well as downright brutal) and utterly clueless at times, she’s like a comic book supervillain who grew up in Hollywood, and her descent into madness is utterly riveting. If the book had one flaw, it’s that Lola was such a fantastic character that she left Bonnie a little in the shade. I found myself rooting for the bad guy! That’s not to say at all that Bonnie’s chapters left me cold, but they were much more familiar territory for an avid reader of YA books.

Speaking of which, the book is a little edgier than most YA, with more graphic violence and a sprinkling of PG 13 sex, but that’s just another thing that sets it apart from the rest of the pack. There’s always the risk when setting this type of story in the real world rather than some mythical kingdom far, far away that a fair bit of suspension of disbelief will be required, and this is certainly true of TGWWBK. But the storytelling, and most importantly the characters, are so enthralling that you won’t even notice!

In summary. Five stars! Loved it, and cannot rate it highly enough! If you like ass kicking female leads, comic book violence, superpowers and an old fashioned good vs evil throw down, then this book is for you. Oh, and if you’re a guy? Please don’t be put off by a female lead, trust me when I say you will not be disappointed by TGWWBK. The only problem is I’ll need to clear my diary when Thompson’s next book comes out. I certainly won’t be getting much sleep!

[B.R. Sanders · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kelly Thompson’s THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING is a strange little book. Slim and quick, the book follows a pair of young women who stumble upon ancestral god-like powers. The pair exist as a fixed duality: Bonnie Braverman is the good one, and Lola LeFever is the bad one. The book switches between their perspectives as both grapple with their newfound abilities.

This book is one part homage to and one part send-up of superhero cliches. There are dead-parent-origin-stories and mad-cackling-at-oddly-named-henchmen. There are several explosive fights between the hero and the villain. This book has the strengths and the weaknesses of its specific genre, and for my money, it falls prey to a common issue: the villain ends up being so much more interesting than the hero that I ended up rooting for the wrong character.

I gave this book three stars, and if I’m honest, it’s because I’m splitting the difference. Bonnie’s sections were a two. I found her flat, two-dimensional. She is an example of “goodness” reading as lacking in depth or complexity. She starts at least a little interesting: when the book opens, Bonnie is a silent seventeen year old living in a group home. She’s been in the system since she was six, when both her parents died in a car crash which she instinctively knows is somehow related to her shocking strength and speed. She stops speaking. She becomes a ghost in her own life, and then the power grows and pushes her to intervene, to protect the people around her. And then she . . . gets a boyfriend. And starts speaking. And works a quirky bookstore job and makes a quirky bookstore friend and becomes less and less interesting with each page. The fact that she spent literal years in silence is not addressed. The feelings of displacement and uncertainty she seems to feel from being an orphan and ward of the state clear up right quick. It is possible to write an extremely good character who is also very compelling and idiosyncratic (see Atticus Finch or Minerva McGonnogal) but Bonnie is not that character.

Standing in sharp contrast is Lola. Her story opens with a carefully plotted matricide. Her voice is immediately funny and heartbreaking at the same time, and the clumsy-witty sharpness of it does not let up once in the book. Her sections were a pleasure to read. The entire book is written in a stream-of-consciousness-lite first person-present tense, but Lola’s sections held much more immediacy and urgency than Bonnie’s did. Even as she falls prey to standard villain killers—madness, a moment of misplaced mercy, hubris—her voice remains distinct and arresting.

Honestly, though, what drew me so much more towards Lola’s narrative than Bonnie’s is that Lola’s is, deep down, an abuse narrative. It’s about Lola trying to make sense out of what she is and how she was treated and why she was treated that way. Replace “superpowers” with “mental illness” and basically you’ve got my childhood (without the matricide). Lola’s story encapsulated a lot of questions I’ve spent my adult life asking myself: if my abusive parents and I share genes, but they also raised me, then what parts of me that are messed up are because it’s encoded in me and what parts are scars left over from all those years in that house? How could I possibly untangle that? Where is that fine line between compassionate acceptance of my flaws and permissive self-enabling of my destructive tendencies? If history has repeated itself for generations—my great-grandmother abused my grandmother who abused my mother who abused me—then is it even possible to break that cycle? Lola reminded me of myself at eighteen, fresh out of a crappy home life and trying to posture and swagger into a better version of myself without realizing all the posture and swagger were the worst things about me.

She is a deeply real character, finely realized, and desperately tragic. I ended up rooting for her because in real life I rooted for myself. I kept hoping Thompson would subvert the Big Trope and pull a fast one on me—I very much wanted Lola to emerge as the good one, to have a redemption, to become sane and stable. That is not what happens. Well, she gets a redemption, of sorts, but it’s a hollow one. All in all, the GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING is a standard by-the-numbers retelling of superhero tropes with one truly standout character.

[Spigot · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Girl Who Would Be King is an interesting take on the superhero genre, weaving Celtic mythology with superhero tropes. In fact, it's really more a modern fantasy novel than superhero. There is no spandex, there are no secret identities, there are no over the top villains. It's much less colorful than anything your average superhero comic fan is familiar with. There are just two girls with mysterious powers and a mysterious connection.

Bonnie and Lola's fates, and their relationship to one another, and the desperation they feel as they try to understand their purpose, is the highlight of this story. Why is Bonnie so inherently good? Why is Lola so inherently bad? It all culminates in them having to fight the other, but why? Neither of them knows why this fate is so set in stone, or why they have this pull towards each other, but they can't fight their natures or their powers even while they question them. And this builds and builds until the inevitable clash, which closes with an incredibly memorable and bittersweet finale...

Until the epilogue.

Now, there are many factors which pulled this novel down from a 3, or even 4 stars, to the 2.5 I gave it. The first person narrative isn't utilized effectively (the story would have flowed much better in 3rd person), there is a lot of telling instead of showing, and Thompson could've used a few more editors to help her fine tune her sentence structure. The side characters also read fairly flat (none worse than Bonnie's boyfriend) and all of the relationships (familial, platonic, and romantic) could have used more development. Hell, Bonnie and Lola themselves could've used more development. The history and mythology behind Bonnie and Lola and their powers could also have used more exploration and attention.

But I could easily have looked past many of these flaws because I was so intrigued by the themes presented with the relationship between the girls and how inevitable their actions are re: fate, good vs evil, balance, etc. Even though the execution was far from perfect, the ending, up until the epilogue, took these themes and addressed them in a thoroughly satisfying way. Throughout the entire book, Lola and Bonnie's lives aren't painted in idealistic light. Their lives kind of suck, a lot, because of their powers and how much influence their powers have on their lives. Without spoiling, while the ending is bittersweet, it's bittersweet in the best of ways because there is change. The cruel cycle that kept Bonnie and Lola trapped their entire lives and that trapped their mothers and their mothers' mothers and their mothers' mothers' mothers, etc, for thousands of years is broken and there is closure.

And then the epilogue hits and it's like JUST KIDDING everything sucked and it still sucks except now it's actually kinda more tragic because they're sisters.

When your 2 page epilogue completely undermines all of the development that happened over the previous 350 pages, that’s… not really good storytelling.

2.5/5 stars, could've easily been a 3, or even a 4, if not for the epilogue (and if there was overall better narrative structure).

[Caanan Grall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in under two weeks and the last time I read a book that fast was the seventh and final Harry Potter, so at least I know it's compelling! Many a "2am lights out" were had with this book, but I didn't care for the character of Lola at all.

The reason I didn't care for Lola might possibly be the same reason this struggled to find a publisher as a YA book. Half the book is from the villain's perspective (which leaves her unfiltered villainy lacking a moralistic framework), and boy - what a villain! She kills without remorse, uses it like a problem solver, and is completely non-relatable. There's no end to the amount of red shirts presented to Lola for immediate dismissal from the land of the living. I had no sympathy for Lola (maybe a little at the end) so I found it hard to read her sections of the book, (moan, moan, kill), but therein lies its success. You're not supposed to like the villain, right? (Are you? Maybe I'm out of touch. I know some people might prefer the Joker over Batman, etc. but I'm a traditionalist who likes the heroes.) Kudos to Ms Thompson for writing such a strong, evil character, but if the police should ever need it as evidence against her for any reason, it might sway a jury as to her potential state of mind!

Publishers might have been worried about the suggestable state of teenagers, but if you're okay with ultra-violence, I'd definitely give this a read.

So, yes... I both loved and hated this book. Loved Bonnie's parts. Loved to hate Lola's. Together, it made for a very satisfying read though, because any author who can make you feel anything, whether it's nice or not, is doing something right!

I've read other superhero novels that fall anywhere between parody (not in a nice way) or authors attempting to do it "better", (bring their self proclaimed sophistication to a barren four coloured wasteland of untapped potential) but there's a love for the superhero genre here - as it exists - all through this book, which I appreciated. It's not apologetic about the silliness of superheroes, (like, say, the latest Batman films) but revels in it, and presents it to us in all its action packed glory. I'd be surprised if someone didn't at least TRY a superhero comic after reading this, it's that enthusiastic. Even buried under the homicidal half of this book, there's joy to be found. In the language. In the fast paced plot. Kelly 'gets' superheroes.

Like all YA novels these days, too, I imagine it was pitched as a trilogy or series, so there's a nice twist ending that would make for another, yet totally different kind of book as sequel, which I hope we get to see one day. (I would also read a side series about Bryce's superheroic adventures in the mental institute, if Kelly ever felt like it.)

[Eugene · Rating 3 out of 5]

Going with the black/white, good versus evil theme of this book, I'm going to present this as a pros/cons list.

Pros
-- I loved the premise of this book. Two young women from two lines of conflict and power discover their amazing powers. Each works through this in their own way, and one day they will collide...
-- The characters are great, especially Lola, who is just an amazing villain. Bonnie isn't bad either, but she is nowhere near as compelling. The interaction between Lola and woman she kidnaps is especially captivating.

Cons
The book falls apart for me in the last third.
-- First, Lola randomly finds a gang that is large enough, well-equipped enough, and committed enough to kill thousands of people and wage war with the most advanced military in the world because they think they'll get rich. Yes, I know, 'comic book logic', but the story had played it straight with the realism until that point. Bonnie even gets her inspiration from comics. This just was a sore thumb moment for me.
-- The mythology info-dump didn't work. First, it implicitly set the conflict as good vs. evil instead of a shades of gray thing, which leads to problems in my next 'Con'. Second, tying the story to a real-life mythology makes the story have certain expectations according to established lore. For me, it made feel a bit less wondrous and imaginative. I think that having its own mythology and this rivalry being a conflict of competing families with different agendas and philosophies would have worked better.
-- The epilogue had me saying, "So what was the point of all that?" I fully expected Bonnie to have a kid that she knows could be a great good or a great evil, but instead we still have a good kid and a bad kid. I can imagine her trying to explain it to them: "So one of you is destined to be evil and crazy. I'm sorry, that's just how it is. Not to be judgmental or anything. I love you both. Honest. Just watch out for the crazy one. Whomever that may be..."

In conclusion, a good book with some big flaws. I'm curious to see where Kelly Thompson goes from here.

[Matthew Borgard · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to enjoy this book. I really did. A superhero story starring two young women, and a young-adult/new-adult tone that doesn't sweep sex under the carpet like it doesn't exist. What's not to like?

Unfortunately, aside from simplistic prose that didn't quite grab me, I just didn't find the characters interesting. Bonnie, our superhero, is an everygirl. She doesn't have any distinguishing features, good or bad. Furthermore, her relationship with Clark, a handsome, perfect first boyfriend who instantly falls in love with her and completely accepts everything about her, is positively saccharine, especially for a novel which seems to be reaching for more than "yet another romance-soaked teen fantasy."

Lola, our supervillain, is just a sociopath, which isn't very fun to read about. Thompson tried to inject some complexity with talk of a dark destiny and a poor upbringing, but it's surface level, and none of it really explains or justifies her behavior.

Now, some people *love* batshit crazy villains, and if that's you, you might enjoy Lola. But the problem is that we spend half of the narrative in her head, and "I want to kill lots of people" isn't all that compelling. Sure, The Joker or Kefka might be interesting when we're identifying with the hero, but I imagine their points-of-view -- "Let's murder some more civilians today!" ad naseum -- would get old quickly.

The book isn't all bad. As I said above, any attempt to make the superhero genre something other than a hypermasculine, overly-sexualized punchfest is laudable, even if I don't think it was executed perfectly. The epilogue was powerful, though I'm not sure it's worth reading the whole book just for that. And it's possible that I'm just not in the target demographic, as a late-20s person instead of an older teenager. But in the end, The Girl Who Would Be King felt undercooked to me. I think Kelly Thompson has talent, and I'm sure she'll continue to develop that. But this novel not quite the masterpiece I was hoping for.

[Masenken Rowe Phalen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want really sure what to think when I started this book. I'm not really a hard person to please, and this was actually really refreshing all said. I thought the ending was glorious and bitterly sad.

Lola is a train wreck of a villain but I mean that in a good way. In a small way she reminds me of the villain from Heavy Rain. Not in their temperament or actions really, just in the way I came to understand them and what drove them to become what they are. At some point midway I forgot that Lola was just a kid. She grew up way too fast, but she was always just lacking in a way and the simple fact that she had superpowers alienated her in ways that really didn't stand out at first.

Likewise, Bonnie just wanted to deny her nature. She knew it was there, but she just wanted normal. But she found herself compelled to do good. To save others.

Both of them had crappy childhoods, imo. Both of them could've easily slid one way or another has they not been born the way they were, and I felt like a good bit of their past was left unexplored, though at the same time there wasn't much to say. You just kind of understand neither one was given a silver spoon.

As the story progressed, though, things just quickly began to expand and unravel for the both of them. I had a hard time trying to figure out if the questions answered would lead to some happy conclusion or what. By the end of the book, however, I was just bitter lol. If you read this and make it to the end you'll see what I mean. The book as a whole was absolutely awesome, imo. Even the ending even if it left me bitter lol. I wasn't digging the first person narrative at first, but it stuck pretty quickly. The story isn't told in chapters, but just constant shifts in perspectives. The back and forth between as they try to figure themselves out is great as they always seem to be apart but together and equally lost on their role in life. Highly recommend this book.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let's be real, the likelihood of me disliking a book about super ladies with god-like powers was pretty slim, but The Girl Who Would Be King didn't disappoint.

TGWWBK follows Lola and Bonnie; two sides of the same insanely superpowered coin. Where Lola is dark, dangerous and without guilt, Bonnie is honest, good and feeling. Lola uses her powers to murder and steal, Bonnie becomes a superhero. And of course, power is toxic; Lola is hell bent on killing Bonnie. But um, neither of them can die.

Without delving in to spoiler territory, I loved how the dualism in the book is played out, and that in the end, it's less about the triumph of good over evil and more about the balance of the two. And of course, I'm always down for a spot of mythology in my fiction.

The only thing that kept me giving the book 5* was that I felt it felt into a my absolute least favourite Young Adult fiction trope which gave me pause, namely the "I'm not pretty but I'm slim, 6ft tall, pale skin, delicate features, red hair, etc.." trope. On what planet is that not conventionally pretty? Though having picked that out, it annoys me far less in a book like this where the intrinsic moral of the story isn't linked to the protagonists beauty/sexuality (see my review of Fever by Lauren DeStefano).

Overall I really enjoyed this book. If blood n' guts are your thing: go for it. If superheroes and badass ladies are your thing: go for it. If teen romance is your thing: go for it too. Especially for a crowdfunded and independently published book, The Girl Who Would Be King does not disappoint.