• Heroine’s Journey
• written by Sarah Kuhn
• published by DAW (2018)

I’m just going to come out and say it: I. Love. This. Series.

Heroine Complex, Heroine Worship, and the forthcoming Heroine’s Journey, follow the adventures of San Francisco’s favorite superheroes, Aveda Jupiter (aka Annie Chang) and Evie Takana, as they defend the city from ongoing demon threats (which range from possessed cupcakes to full-scale invasion from the Underworld). Accompanying them on their quests for life, liberty, and the pursuit of the perfect butt-kicking boots are the other members of “Team Tanaka/Jupiter,” including Evie’s younger sister Bea, who the elder Tanaka raised after the death of their mother and their father left to pursue his chakra alignment. Bea wants nothing more than to use her powers to follow in Evie’s footsteps.

Or so she thinks.

This trilogy is everything I love about urban fantasy: heroic, complex, smart, and snarky. The plots are not only entertaining but multilayered, dancing deftly between epic moments and small, personal ones. The characters are both incredible and human, perfectly imperfect, magical and relatable, and I care about them so. Very. Much.

These ladies are every geek girl’s wish fulfillment, and, at the same time, they are as us as we are. They have superpowers and they fight with their best friends. They make mistakes. Their confidence wavers. They kick butt and eat cereal for dinner. They fall apart and they reassemble themselves.

They fight and they persist.

Heroine’s Journey is particularly timely because Bea, the point-of-view character for this last installment in the trilogy, is facing the struggles so many of us do, foremost of which is attempting to find herself amidst the chaos of family and career and love and life. There are so many things she wants, so many things she needs, so many things she is that aren’t considered “proper” for women, either in her own culture or in society at large. That conflict drives the story, as it drives all of us in our actions and our decisions, even if we aren’t wielding mind-bending powers like Bea.

The fact that she comes to terms with all of it, that she embraces it, while ultimately admitting what she doesn’t know gives anyone who reads her story hope because hope, as Bea explains, “comes from watching people push past seemingly insurmountable odds to do the right thing.” For others. And for themselves.

Things such as being un-self-consciously nerdy. To grieve openly. To be angry. To be unsure, to be broken and save yourself before you try to save everyone else. It’s okay for it to take time for you to find yourself. It’s okay to like who you are.

It’s okay to be broken and refuse to let the cracks swallow you.

All of that with a fantastic supervillain monologue.

So, yes. Recommend. Highly.

And, praise be to sparkly, ceramic unicorns, this isn’t going to be the last we read of Team Tanaka/Jupiter. While Heroine’s Journey is the end of this story arc, according to Kuhn’s acknowledgments (see, you should always read them), this fantastic cast will be returning to our eyeballs (hopefully sooner rather than later, insert flail GIF here). Fantastic news for anyone who needs a hero.