“Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow”

“What’s confusing about this book is that it’s not awesome, but it’s STILL one of the better Supergirl stories, so that makes it relatively awesome on some level.

I think the issue with this is the narration, which comes in the form of a book written by our narrator/main character. She’s a farm girl who talks in a very odd, stilted way, the sort of thing that…well, it mixes “high” speech, usually avoiding contractions, fancy turns of phrase, shit like that, but also that sort of folksy eloquence you might catch in the south where someone will use 10 words when 1 will do.

I think this kind of dialog can work when spoken, but in writing, it’s a slog, and it didn’t feel consistent to me. The character said things like “ain’t” a lot, but also took a lot of pains to avoid easier ways through certain phrases and blocks of dialog.

The narration is sort of successful in that it feels written, feels like writing, and that’s what it’s meant to be. But that kind of thing isn’t very pleasurable to read. So for me, it felt stilted, and it was supposed to, so that leaves me with…eh?

It’s a style thing that doesn’t work for me on this one. The narration just didn’t gel with the things I was seeing on the page, and that killed some of the fun for me.”