Title: Karma Girl
Series: Bigtime #1
Author: Jennifer Estep
Genre: Adult, paranormal romance, superheroes
Publication date: January 2014 (First published in May 2007)
Published by: Jennifer Estep (1st edition by Berkley)
Source: Purchased ebook
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Synopsis: Investigative reporter Carmen Cole gets the surprise of her life on her wedding day when she discovers that her fiancé and best friend are sleeping together—and that the two of them are her town's resident superhero and ubervillain. Shocked and hurt, Carmen reveals their secret identities and then decides to devote her life to unmasking every superhero and ubervillain who crosses her path.
A series of successful unmaskings lands Carmen a job at The Exposé, one of the biggest newspapers in Bigtime, New York, a city that's full of superheroes and ubervillains. Carmen is in her element—until she gets kidnapped by the Terrible Triad, Bigtime’s most dangerous ubervillain team.
The Triad orders Carmen to uncover the secret identity of Striker, the leader of the Fearless Five, Bigtime's most popular superhero team—or else they’ll drop her in a vat of radioactive goo. With that threat hanging over her, Carmen sets out to unmask Striker, but what she doesn’t count on is falling for the sexy superhero. But with the Terrible Triad lurking around, this is one story that just might be the death of her...
I love Jennifer Estep’s books! My first introduction to her work was Mythos Academy—I fell immediately in love with it! I read this series nearly 10 years ago, and to this day, it remains one of my favorites series of all time! Next I read Elemental Assassin and Black Blade, both of which I loved. Elemental Assassin is another of my all time favorite series—Gin Blanco is an absolutely incredible character! I even love Crown of Shards, which is saying something because I’m not super into epic fantasies. However, I love superhero stuff so I was very excited to read this, but I’m really sad to report that I didn’t love it as much as I did her other books 😞 I am just so surprised at myself!
The book basically starts off like this:
My fiancé and best friend were sleeping together and hiding their secret identities from me. I didn’t know which betrayal hurt worse. Or which made me angrier.
Carmen found them sexing it up on her wedding day!! On her wedding day. It was literally minutes before she was about to marry the guy when she walked in on them. Can you believe it?! Poor girl. And to top it off, her ex-fiancé was a superhero and her best friend was his archenemy. Yikes 😬 She had no clue that they were seeing each other behind her back, much less that they were a superhero and an ubervillain. So when Carmen, who is a journalist, sets out to expose their identity to the whole world, I was totally for it! They are assholes and they totally deserve it for what they did to her. But then Carmen took it a step too far and decided that she wasn’t going to stop there. Oh no, she was going to unmask ALL the superheroes and villains. I’m sorry but that is just not okay in my book. I get that she is hurt, but the identity of these other villains and heroes is none of her business! And then things backfire...
I’m glad she at least admits that what she did was wrong. But that did not make me like her more. Throughout the book I was waiting for the switch in my brain to flip to where I’d actually like our protagonist. It never did. I was waiting for the superhero that Gwen Frost loves so much to do something to make me like her. (Some context: Gwen Frost is the protagonist in the Mythos Academy series, and one of her favorite superheroes is Carmen, aka Karma Girl.) It didn’t happen. This is only the first book in the series, but I just don’t see what Gwen sees in Carmen. Carmen did an awful thing and I couldn’t get myself to care about her, even if she did admit that she was in the wrong.
Superheroes and ubervillains had always been abstract thoughts to me, puzzles to be solved. I’d never considered them to be people too, with thoughts and feelings and emotions. I had been too angry and hurt and self-righteous to do that. Matt and Karen had ignored my feelings, so I’d steamrolled over everyone else’s.
And about this unmasking business... it was so glaringly obvious who was who. I don’t know if she was just dense or what, but I had things figured out WAY ahead of time. I know this is not a mystery, but still. It was obvious!
Let’s talk about the romance because ooof 😬 I usually love the romance in Jennifer Estep’s books because they are slow burn. This one? Not so much. I swear, Carmen and Sloane were worse than horny teenagers! 🙄 It was very insta-lovey, and I’m just not into that. I mean, here Carmen is thinking she might be in love with the guy when she hardly knows him! Jeez!
And this Sloane guy? Yeah he was hot, but I didn’t really care for him. That in and of itself is strange for me because I love all of Jennifer Estep’s other love interests! Owen Grayson from Elemental Assassin? Omg yes! I fell in love with him as soon as he was introduced! Logan freaking Quinn from Mythos Academy? Aside from Jace Herondale, Logan is my top book boyfriend of all time! The other love interests from her other books I have read are great too, so me not caring for this guy is a shocker. He just... nothing 🤷♀️
And then Carmen herself, well, we’ve already established that I wasn’t a big fan of her and her actions, but she was also, well... not as badass as I was expecting. When I read one of Jennifer’s books, I know to expect a strong, badass, female lead. But Carmen was more of damsel in distress needing to be rescued more often than not... well, up until the end. I’m just not used to this type of heroine from Jennifer! I was a bit shocked.
Anyway, this book was just a bizarre experience for me. I didn’t care for a lot of the aspects I usually love in a Jennifer Estep book, which is something I was not expecting. And if my research is to be correct, this book is the first, if not one of the first books, Jennifer Estep published. Maybe it just took a little bit to get to the point in her writing where I just love everything? Although this is more paranormal romance-y than the urban fantasy I’m used to from her, so that may have a bit to do with it? But all that being said, this book was not awful by any means. Yes, it had more romance than action, but it was really funny and the superhero aspect was really cool. Even though this book didn’t live up to my expectations, I will definitely continue on with the series because I have faith it will get better. Regardless of my feelings about this book, Jennifer Estep will continue to be one of my favorite authors!
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