Rating: 6.5/10
Basic Summary: In Marta Acosta’s The She-Hulk Diaries, we follow Jennifer Walters as she struggles with her She-Hulk side and tries to stick to her New Year’s Resolutions. Well, Valentine’s Resolutions. She’ll explain. Jennifer is a lawyer, specializing in super-human law, and trying to keep her life together and her inner…creature quiet. She-Hulk parties hard, so they’ve been kicked out of the Avenger’s Mansion, and Jennifer just wants to get by as a normal, non-green New Yorker. When she finally thinks things may head towards the up-and-up, it gets twisted: her new boss’s son is an old hook-up who wrote a hit song for her but never called back, and he’s also engaged to her mean co-worker, PLUS their client is “totally cute” and insists on hitting on her. Oh, the chaos.
My Thoughts: This book was an interesting/different read. I was really excited when I got the opportunity to read it through NetGalley, but I also wasn’t sure what to expect. One of the nice aspects of the book is how it’s told through Jennifer’s diary. The internal thoughts/monologuing make sense, and allows for the Type-A analysis and list making that defines the calm side of Jennifer.
The story starts slow, and drags a bit, but it does pick up at the end. Acosta is in some tricky area with this book. It’s chick-lit set in the action-dominated Marvel Universe. Acosta hasn’t mastered the balance, but she is certainly making strides. This isn’t look-it’s-a-pink-hammer-so-now-you’ll-like-it girly, or pink-makes-me-throw-up anti-girly. It’s a girl who wants to have a career, find a guy, take martial arts, but also not be fabulous all the time. (It works better when Marta does it than me.)
Bonus Section: This one does bring in some elements of romance, that get a bit cheesy/romance-genre for me. But by the end of it I found myself enjoying them and rooting her on as well. One of my biggest peeves with the title is that half the romance trouble comes from a certain hot guy getting Jennifer’s name completely wrong for multiple days. It’s the dumbest thing that happens among some otherwise smart characters.
There are some nice background details on the Avengers and the super hero world. Some telling details about Tony Stark’s personal life as well, that add some really nice touches to this book. And the emergence of She-Hulk in her scandalous and often revealing outfits are always amusing.
The Wrap-Up: All in all, not too shabby. A bit slow in the beginning, but if you like some chicky romance and the super hero romance, it’s a nice slow day’s read.
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