Book Review: After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn

Summary: It’s not easy being a superhero’s daughter….

Carrie Vaughn has captured legions of fans with her wildly popular Kitty Norville novels. Now she uses her extraordinary wit and imagination to tell a sensational new story about superhuman heroes–and the people who have to live with them.

Most people dream of having superheroes for parents, but not Celia West. The only daughter of Captain Olympus and Spark, the world’s greatest champions, she has no powers of her own, and the most exciting thing she’s ever done is win a silver medal in a high school swim meet. Meanwhile, she’s the favorite hostage of every crime boss and supervillain in Comemrce City. She doesn’t have a code name, but if she did, it would probably be Bait Girl, the Captive Wonder.

Rejecting her famous family and its legacy, Celia has worked hard to create a life for herself beyond the shadow of their capes, becoming a skilled forensic accountant. But when her parents’ archenemy, the Destructor, faces justice in the “Trial of the Century,” Celia finds herself sucked back into the more-than-mortal world of Captain Olympus–and forced to confront a secret that she hoped would stay buried forever. (Copied from GoodReads.)

Warnings: There is violence but nothing overt.

Review:

I love when books, comic books and traditional novels, take on super hero tropes. The biggest trope in this is where a character continually gets kidnapped. In fact, that is the main character, Celia West. And Celia has a complicated relationship with her rescuers, they are often her parents. And this is one of the main plots of the story – Celia’s relationship with her parents and the conflicts that can arise when your parents are these larger than life people and you happen to be average.  While Celia’s parents may have superhero powers, they are not perfect and they have shown their disappointment when Celia turned out to be a normal child. Carrie Vaughn does a fantastic job with this element of the story.

Then there is the main plot like of the Destructor’s trial and Celia’s part in his trial as well as her continually getting kidnapped. The pacing is well done. I didn’t feel it went too fast or too slow and it was easy to follow. Now, when I say easy to follow, I don’t mean there wasn’t complex thoughts and ideas but rather, all the pieces made sense and there weren’t any moments I had to reread pages to try and find where it all went to hell.

Characterizations were done well. There were characters that seemed one dimensional when you first meet them on the page and then depth is given throughout the novel.

I would love a prequel to this novel to see Captain Olympus and the Destructor in their prime.

Overall loved this book and recommend it to everyone.

Rating: 4/5

May you get lost in a book,

Chrissy