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White Knight
University life is hard enough without catching the attention of the Villains that call the campus home. Rosey and Lilly, fourth year seniors and best roomies since first year, are preparing to graduate when Lilly decides once and for all that she will be a Super. She is determined to protect the innocent, help those in need, and create a safe place for everyone—even though she doesn't have powers.
And while Rosey struggles to keep Lilly from getting creamed by people like Darklaw and Arson Invitation, the secrets she's been hiding since their first year threaten to emerge.
And while Rosey struggles to keep Lilly from getting creamed by people like Darklaw and Arson Invitation, the secrets she's been hiding since their first year threaten to emerge.
54 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 11, 2018
22 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 17, 2018
ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This was a short story that actually left me wanting to know more.
The aesthetic of the story and the writing is not quite fitting for the cover, but I still really liked it.
That cover is without question BEAUTIFUL. It shows one of the main characters, Lilly.
But I seem to have a hard time really liking characters who seem ‘too genuinley good’. Lilly wants nothing more than to help people, even if it means following the really stupid plan of posing as a hero - in a world where there are actual superpowered heroes who STUDY how to be a hero for years -, even tho she doesn’t have any powers. And no, she doesn’t have any fighting skills to make up for it, just her good will. Which is admirable, but not smart.
But the thing is, what made this story so good for me, was the other main character, Rosey.
She’s posing as this normal girl who only wears white and pink and baby blue and does cosplay and spends all her free time in the library - and then you meet her with the villains she secretly belongs to and SCARES them to death and outsmarts and outwits them all. And find out that being a villain is her family business.
And I love every aspect of this. And my mind is running wild on what more you could do with a character like hers.
I want to know how her childhood was as the daughter of villains, who might accidently poison the other kids in kindergarden if she slips. I want to see how their classes at University actually work. I want to see the villain students pulling off an attack on the supers like the one Rosey presented to her ‘study group’. I want to see her parents and siblings meeting her goody-two-shoes girlfriend. Hell, I want to see her as grumpy teen doing an so-called ‘internship’ with her dad where she comes along with him as he’s robbing a bank.
And then this quote:
YES. I love it, because that is such a slytherin thing to say.
So yes, that was triggering my imagination and that’s nice.
All in all, the story surely isn’t without its flaws, and I didn’t like all aspects of the ending. But it’s good to read, it’s a very cool idea and it created a world and characters with a lot of potential.
[Review on Tumblr]
This was a short story that actually left me wanting to know more.
The aesthetic of the story and the writing is not quite fitting for the cover, but I still really liked it.
That cover is without question BEAUTIFUL. It shows one of the main characters, Lilly.
But I seem to have a hard time really liking characters who seem ‘too genuinley good’. Lilly wants nothing more than to help people, even if it means following the really stupid plan of posing as a hero - in a world where there are actual superpowered heroes who STUDY how to be a hero for years -, even tho she doesn’t have any powers. And no, she doesn’t have any fighting skills to make up for it, just her good will. Which is admirable, but not smart.
But the thing is, what made this story so good for me, was the other main character, Rosey.
She’s posing as this normal girl who only wears white and pink and baby blue and does cosplay and spends all her free time in the library - and then you meet her with the villains she secretly belongs to and SCARES them to death and outsmarts and outwits them all. And find out that being a villain is her family business.
And I love every aspect of this. And my mind is running wild on what more you could do with a character like hers.
I want to know how her childhood was as the daughter of villains, who might accidently poison the other kids in kindergarden if she slips. I want to see how their classes at University actually work. I want to see the villain students pulling off an attack on the supers like the one Rosey presented to her ‘study group’. I want to see her parents and siblings meeting her goody-two-shoes girlfriend. Hell, I want to see her as grumpy teen doing an so-called ‘internship’ with her dad where she comes along with him as he’s robbing a bank.
And then this quote:
"Why couldn't you have been a hero?"
"Because I'm not one. My loyalty is to myself, to those I care about."
YES. I love it, because that is such a slytherin thing to say.
So yes, that was triggering my imagination and that’s nice.
All in all, the story surely isn’t without its flaws, and I didn’t like all aspects of the ending. But it’s good to read, it’s a very cool idea and it created a world and characters with a lot of potential.
[Review on Tumblr]
July 11, 2018
I read this book in about an hour. It's a fast and fun superhero read, and my opinions on it are basically all based on my own preferences as regards superhero/supervillain stories. And I do have some opinions.
The basic plot of this story is that there are two college girls, Lilly and Rosey, in a world where being a superhero or a supervillain is a valid career and even a major at this particular college. Lilly, pure-hearted justice-lover that she is, is a huge superhero fan and thinks of villains as, well, villainous, and to blame for people being injured and hurt. Rosey, her roommate, disagrees, largely because she is herself a villain, though only secretly. She chose this path in life largely because she has a superpower of poisoning people through her skin, but she sees it as defensible. As the story goes on, Lilly, who wants to become a superhero despite her lack of powers, gets drawn into Rosey's villain-related drama.
Rosey's character really worked for me in this story. The problem was that Lilly's really didn't. What that comes down to is that for me, the best superhero/supervillain stories are about what it means to be a hero or a villain. Why do people choose to go down a darker path? What do we count as villainy and what as heroism? If someone is a villain, can they be redeemed? What if people who seem to be heroes sometimes aren't?
With Rosey, we start to explore a little of what being a villain is. Part of it is the crowd she runs with. She gives brief reasons for why her friends chose to be villains (Batboy is a bat, wouldn't feel comfortable with heroes, another likes explosions but tries not to hurt people, etc etc), and for herself, it's a combination of powers and heritage--she chose this path because her family has always been villainous. She seems like an essentially good or at least morally neutral person who hasn't really done anything wrong (at least within the span of this story) yet has been given this label. Which for me is kind of interesting, and made me believe this was a story where hero/villain would be more played as defined roles than as moral signifiers.
But the story never quite goes there. We never really find out what villain or hero means in this world, besides the generic label. Is being a supervillain actually legal here? If so, why can you call on superheroes to help you when villains attack, and why are supervillains still seen as monstrous and evil? If not, why is it being taught at a university? And either way, why are we so sympathetic to Lilly when she subscribes to this dichotomy? If being a supervillain is somehow a viable career choice in this universe, why is fighting and defeating supervillains seen as a morally righteous thing to do? Why is even Rosey, by the end, in agreement with this?
I think for me I'm just generally confused by the world building. I need to understand better what villain and hero mean in the context of this world, and I just don't. And, in order to not feel vaguely resentful of Lilly's self-righteousness, I'd have to know a little better where Lilly comes from.
However, my personal hero/villain preferences aside (boy do I like to dissect a dichotomy), this book has lots of good things in it. For one thing, it has a Muslim (I think?) superhero in Lilly, which kind of makes me think of Ms. Marvel and is pretty cool. For another, Rosey is the kind of morally neutral and occasionally nasty chick I love (though I would have liked to go deeper with her...oh well). Basically it's tropey fun. I'd like to see what else Maple Marr will write in the future.
I received an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
The basic plot of this story is that there are two college girls, Lilly and Rosey, in a world where being a superhero or a supervillain is a valid career and even a major at this particular college. Lilly, pure-hearted justice-lover that she is, is a huge superhero fan and thinks of villains as, well, villainous, and to blame for people being injured and hurt. Rosey, her roommate, disagrees, largely because she is herself a villain, though only secretly. She chose this path in life largely because she has a superpower of poisoning people through her skin, but she sees it as defensible. As the story goes on, Lilly, who wants to become a superhero despite her lack of powers, gets drawn into Rosey's villain-related drama.
Rosey's character really worked for me in this story. The problem was that Lilly's really didn't. What that comes down to is that for me, the best superhero/supervillain stories are about what it means to be a hero or a villain. Why do people choose to go down a darker path? What do we count as villainy and what as heroism? If someone is a villain, can they be redeemed? What if people who seem to be heroes sometimes aren't?
With Rosey, we start to explore a little of what being a villain is. Part of it is the crowd she runs with. She gives brief reasons for why her friends chose to be villains (Batboy is a bat, wouldn't feel comfortable with heroes, another likes explosions but tries not to hurt people, etc etc), and for herself, it's a combination of powers and heritage--she chose this path because her family has always been villainous. She seems like an essentially good or at least morally neutral person who hasn't really done anything wrong (at least within the span of this story) yet has been given this label. Which for me is kind of interesting, and made me believe this was a story where hero/villain would be more played as defined roles than as moral signifiers.
But the story never quite goes there. We never really find out what villain or hero means in this world, besides the generic label. Is being a supervillain actually legal here? If so, why can you call on superheroes to help you when villains attack, and why are supervillains still seen as monstrous and evil? If not, why is it being taught at a university? And either way, why are we so sympathetic to Lilly when she subscribes to this dichotomy? If being a supervillain is somehow a viable career choice in this universe, why is fighting and defeating supervillains seen as a morally righteous thing to do? Why is even Rosey, by the end, in agreement with this?
I think for me I'm just generally confused by the world building. I need to understand better what villain and hero mean in the context of this world, and I just don't. And, in order to not feel vaguely resentful of Lilly's self-righteousness, I'd have to know a little better where Lilly comes from.
However, my personal hero/villain preferences aside (boy do I like to dissect a dichotomy), this book has lots of good things in it. For one thing, it has a Muslim (I think?) superhero in Lilly, which kind of makes me think of Ms. Marvel and is pretty cool. For another, Rosey is the kind of morally neutral and occasionally nasty chick I love (though I would have liked to go deeper with her...oh well). Basically it's tropey fun. I'd like to see what else Maple Marr will write in the future.
I received an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
July 25, 2018
This book was provided for free by the publisher and Love Bytes in exchange for an honest review.
This review was first posted to Love Bytes: LGBTQ Book Reviews. It has been slightly edited here for content.
Superheroes and villains, by nature, are larger than life. They’re just fantastical enough to be a little bit absurd, no matter how cool they are. This story is awesome because it relies on the fact that even if super-powered people were real, they’d still be human, and humans do stupid stuff, fight with each other, and lie to their roommates who they are secretly in love with. For a very short story, White Knight does a lot of stuff no other superhero meta-fiction has done before.
Right away, I knew I liked both of these characters. Their friend/roommate dynamic is just cute enough to make me want them to come to their senses and just smooch already after the first chapter. Because this world’s “super” backstory took the narrative lead, we don’t get a ton of in-depth characterization of Rosey and Lilly, but we get enough to understand and sympathize with both of their points of view. I like how Lilly’s Muslim background comes into play with both her moral code and her choice of costume (as well as the gorgeous book cover), and Rosey’s natural biting sarcasm makes so much more sense when we learn about her big secret.
I enjoyed the humor between the two women and the world around them more than the actual hero/villain backstory. I just took the world as it was right away—there are heroes, there are villains, and that’s just how it is. I didn’t question it or need a whole lot of justification until Lilly decides for herself that she wants to change the old ways. It might be a cliché idea on paper—“what if we could be good and bad?”—but this story doesn’t take the 100% moral route. Lilly, Rosey, and the readers all know that the world isn’t black and white, but certain tropes exist for a reason, and those tropes can always be toyed with or broken. Those hero/villain stereotypes sure are fun to play with!
As usual, I found the very PG conclusion to Lilly and Rosey’s long-held mutual pining to be a little lackluster. While the guys in M/M romances always get their explosive kisses and passionate climaxes (pun intended), the ladies are often relegated to a chaste kiss with mere promises of more off the page. Lilly and Rosey have such lovely chemistry that I wanted to see them as them just a little bit more. It’s a short work, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t get a more romantic conclusion.
This is an easy, accessible, fun story if you need something short and sweet, but it’s also a fresh, new read that plays with ideas and tropes we all know and love.
This review was first posted to Love Bytes: LGBTQ Book Reviews. It has been slightly edited here for content.
Superheroes and villains, by nature, are larger than life. They’re just fantastical enough to be a little bit absurd, no matter how cool they are. This story is awesome because it relies on the fact that even if super-powered people were real, they’d still be human, and humans do stupid stuff, fight with each other, and lie to their roommates who they are secretly in love with. For a very short story, White Knight does a lot of stuff no other superhero meta-fiction has done before.
Right away, I knew I liked both of these characters. Their friend/roommate dynamic is just cute enough to make me want them to come to their senses and just smooch already after the first chapter. Because this world’s “super” backstory took the narrative lead, we don’t get a ton of in-depth characterization of Rosey and Lilly, but we get enough to understand and sympathize with both of their points of view. I like how Lilly’s Muslim background comes into play with both her moral code and her choice of costume (as well as the gorgeous book cover), and Rosey’s natural biting sarcasm makes so much more sense when we learn about her big secret.
I enjoyed the humor between the two women and the world around them more than the actual hero/villain backstory. I just took the world as it was right away—there are heroes, there are villains, and that’s just how it is. I didn’t question it or need a whole lot of justification until Lilly decides for herself that she wants to change the old ways. It might be a cliché idea on paper—“what if we could be good and bad?”—but this story doesn’t take the 100% moral route. Lilly, Rosey, and the readers all know that the world isn’t black and white, but certain tropes exist for a reason, and those tropes can always be toyed with or broken. Those hero/villain stereotypes sure are fun to play with!
As usual, I found the very PG conclusion to Lilly and Rosey’s long-held mutual pining to be a little lackluster. While the guys in M/M romances always get their explosive kisses and passionate climaxes (pun intended), the ladies are often relegated to a chaste kiss with mere promises of more off the page. Lilly and Rosey have such lovely chemistry that I wanted to see them as them just a little bit more. It’s a short work, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t get a more romantic conclusion.
This is an easy, accessible, fun story if you need something short and sweet, but it’s also a fresh, new read that plays with ideas and tropes we all know and love.
July 17, 2018
Although I thought this sounded cute, what really sold me was that cover – a Muslim superhero was something I definitely wanted to read. Alas, I’m still waiting to read it, because this was nothing like I was hoping.
Firstly, these characters don’t read anything like fourth year university students. There’s a lot of swearing, but other than that, all the characters involved are really immature. Lilly is the worst of the lot. If she was actually twelve, I could understand her level of naivety, but she isn’t, so it was just annoying. Pairing the hijab her parents sent her with a Templar Knight tunic is… I think it was supposed to be funny, but it just summed Lilly up for me. She’s been living away from home for four years, but somehow remains incredibly childish and her view of everything is completely black and white. The idea of trying to become a Super without any plan as to how she’d go up against people with actual powers was disappointing. I at least hoped she’d have some sort of alchemy skills, but nothing.
Then again, this world is not at all well described. The idea is great and all, but there’s a distinct lack of detail. Are Villains really so awful, because it seems like a load of shallow entertainment considering the fact they get scored. In which case, what is Lilly defending everyone against, exactly? There’s a mention of a kid whose arm got broken in the crossfire between Supers and Villains, but again, no detail about how or what happened, or whether it was the Villains or Supers – or both – to blame. And what do they really do for the world? It seems like not a lot, which seems entirely pointless.
So, sadly, I didn’t enjoy this. If it had been set in a boarding school or with Lilly having just left home or something, I think it would have worked better for all the characters. More explanation about the world and how Supers and Villains fit into it would also have been nice. As it is, this was an interesting idea with a beautiful cover that sadly didn’t live up to my expectations.
(Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.)
Firstly, these characters don’t read anything like fourth year university students. There’s a lot of swearing, but other than that, all the characters involved are really immature. Lilly is the worst of the lot. If she was actually twelve, I could understand her level of naivety, but she isn’t, so it was just annoying. Pairing the hijab her parents sent her with a Templar Knight tunic is… I think it was supposed to be funny, but it just summed Lilly up for me. She’s been living away from home for four years, but somehow remains incredibly childish and her view of everything is completely black and white. The idea of trying to become a Super without any plan as to how she’d go up against people with actual powers was disappointing. I at least hoped she’d have some sort of alchemy skills, but nothing.
Then again, this world is not at all well described. The idea is great and all, but there’s a distinct lack of detail. Are Villains really so awful, because it seems like a load of shallow entertainment considering the fact they get scored. In which case, what is Lilly defending everyone against, exactly? There’s a mention of a kid whose arm got broken in the crossfire between Supers and Villains, but again, no detail about how or what happened, or whether it was the Villains or Supers – or both – to blame. And what do they really do for the world? It seems like not a lot, which seems entirely pointless.
So, sadly, I didn’t enjoy this. If it had been set in a boarding school or with Lilly having just left home or something, I think it would have worked better for all the characters. More explanation about the world and how Supers and Villains fit into it would also have been nice. As it is, this was an interesting idea with a beautiful cover that sadly didn’t live up to my expectations.
(Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.)
August 30, 2018
Thanks netgalley for sending me an arc of this one in exchange of a review.
I enjoyed this A LOT,its basically a f/f story about heroes and villains and its very short so you can easily read it one sitting and Lilly and Rosey were amazing and I ship them a lot.
I want more of Lilly and Rosey, SO MUCH MORE.
I enjoyed this A LOT,its basically a f/f story about heroes and villains and its very short so you can easily read it one sitting and Lilly and Rosey were amazing and I ship them a lot.
I want more of Lilly and Rosey, SO MUCH MORE.
August 10, 2018
A big thank you to NetGalley and Less Than Three Press for providing me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
The cover is absolutely stunning, so that's what drew me in. A Muslim superhero! Queer girls! I was beyond thrilled. Then I read it, and... my expectations were kind of crushed.
Although the narrative style had been bothering me a little in the second chapter, with so much monologue said out loud, Lilly's treatment of the hijab was the first thing that really felt like a red flag. After that, it was difficult to root for the characters, and Lilly's naiveté made their ages really hard to sell. Had this been upper-MG, I would have bought the characters' choices, and be okay with the narrative style. As it is, though, the main characters absolutely did not feel like seniors.
The world building was *really* confusing, too. I'm in love with anything superhero/villain, but what made them superheroes or villains remained a foggy concept. Since it's the core of the book, not developing was... big.
The cover is absolutely stunning, so that's what drew me in. A Muslim superhero! Queer girls! I was beyond thrilled. Then I read it, and... my expectations were kind of crushed.
Although the narrative style had been bothering me a little in the second chapter, with so much monologue said out loud, Lilly's treatment of the hijab was the first thing that really felt like a red flag. After that, it was difficult to root for the characters, and Lilly's naiveté made their ages really hard to sell. Had this been upper-MG, I would have bought the characters' choices, and be okay with the narrative style. As it is, though, the main characters absolutely did not feel like seniors.
The world building was *really* confusing, too. I'm in love with anything superhero/villain, but what made them superheroes or villains remained a foggy concept. Since it's the core of the book, not developing was... big.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews