I think over a week I spent
on this book, the first I picked up after declaring I would read no less than
25 books this summer. It was as if I opened my door to a new life and found a
wall of snow there that I had to wallow through for days to find the world
outside. Now I can blame a few components to my slow reading time such as my
distaste for the narrative, my quest to catch up with Game of Thrones and my
attraction to another book. However, the truth to it is I could not understand
the book, and here's why:
There is no doubt in
my mind that Warren Hately can weave magic with words. He is certainly skilled
at stringing together bold sentences, but almost to a fault. The high
concentration of these overly wordy lines often distracts from the story. I can
cite multiple instances where entire paragraphs consisted of only one sentence,
which was barely related to the plot. Moreover, this style of writing bares no
resemblance to the main character's attitude. A blue-collar closet superhero
from New York who has the vocabulary of a British professor mixed with a
12-year old gamer.
Honestly, Zephyr is
one of the most difficult to like protagonists I have ever encountered. While
his wit and humor had me laughing, they were only drowned by his racism,
ableism, homophobia, and sexism. I had just as much trouble trying to deduce
how Hately is opinionated on some of these hot button issues. He comes from
another part of the world entirely, which also factors in to how odd it was
that he wrote a novel set in the U.S., but flavored in his native Australian
language. “Colours” and “bloodies” abound. If an American man from Queens with
this temper heard another New Yorker speaking this way, he'd sock him. Back on
topic though, it is difficult to get past the "Afro-Americans" and
"Fags" thrown around all the time. Whether or not Hately understands
these terms are offensive or is acutely self-aware, the book reeks of them.
And the plot. It does
have its unique qualities, but that is not necessarily a good thing. In fact,
the last few chapters, which are generally reserved for a climax, tell almost a
completely different story fit for a book of it's own.
Another qualm I faced
was the overabundance of characters. I counted 40+ superhero names within the
book, all making random appearances. It was such a rough time trying to learn whom
characters are when they show up randomly and in such large numbers. Perhaps
the only secondary characters I got to know were the ones with the dialogue
tags, "the gay hero says" or "a distinctly Afro-American
voice." Ah, just a mess. And the attempt at putting heroes at the level of
celebrities was just as poor. So many random celebrities were name dropped in
the first chapter that I felt the author did all his research by reading People
Magazine.
I do think there is a
possibility this deconstruction of the superhero genre could be groundbreaking
and brilliant, but the execution was beyond me. I will not be holding on to
this one.
