I'm a well read grad student who's bluntly honest about all things, although I try to be most honest about myself.
So, I won this in a Booklikes giveaway a while ago. I didn't mean to take this long reading this book, especially after I got sucked in. I just went on a Humble Bundle comics kick, and got sucked into that. Sometimes I just work better with particular formats of book, and I wanted PDF comics at that point in time.
So, the author didn't require a review, much less a positive one for this book.
So, let's get the issue I had out of the way first. While the book was all about outrageous humor, I was bothered by the racial aspect of this, most notably the use of Asian characters and cultural ideas that were skewed so badly I couldn't help but laugh at them. (And then felt a little guilty about it, to be honest.) It was a little harder in retrospect, after I had finished the book: the skewering of the white people gets resolved, and there's far less of a connection with the non-white characters.
Which, to be honest, is pretty common in books. The white characters get more time, get more fleshed out, and often times get redeemed in way that other characters don't. Just because I've come to expect this in a lot of books, it doesn't make it any less disheartening.
It is, in fact, especially disheartening in a book that is as genuinely funny and well written as the book is. Canzano paces this well, has a lot of really good characters who feel real, and whom I like. Magno girl holds onto her own morals despite a lot of pressure to be someone she isn't and to do things she doesn't want to do, usually for money.
Ron can be a little pushy, and I didn't particularly like that about him, but overall, he was a good guy, and I liked him, too. (Which was good since this was told from his point of view.)
The children Magno girl tutored all seemed to have their heads on straight despite their pretty awful childhoods, and the only regret is that I'd like to have seen more of them.
A quick, easy read that is funny, and had all the action I've come to expect from a superhero novel. Although I do have to warn that this is not kid-friendly: sex, swears, and drugs do abound.