Elena Likes Books

3.5 stars. This was a decent superhero novel, and I'm glad to see a slight trend toward more of them. I'm looking forward to them getting better, but After the Golden Age is a good starter novel for what I hope is a burgeoning subgenre.A few weeks ago, I reviewed Grimspace by Ann Aguirre, and reviewed it unfavorably partly because the love interest had the extremely unsexy quality of being a mind-reader who was constantly shuffling around in the main character's head. It just squicked me out. Which was why I found myself startled to be shipping the protagonist of this novel, Celia, and Dr. Mentis, the unassuming mind reader superhero, almost as soon as we were introduced to him. I think the difference is that Arthur Mentis is so blasted polite about his mind reading, and doesn't take advantage of his power at all. At any rate, he was my favorite character, and without him, this book would easily have dropped a star.This is because I was honestly pretty puzzled by the main character and her family. Celia West is the disappointingly ordinary daughter of the world's most celebrated superhumans. I can buy the estranged family dynamic. What I can't understand is why, when it became apparent that Celia was both a) lacking in superpowers and b) a target for kidnapping, she and/or her parents didn't invest in hardcore self-defense training. She has been kidnapped seven times. Her parents and their team always rescue her, but she really resents being tied to them in any way. So you'd think that after kidnapping number two or three, she'd enroll in a martial arts class or something. I spent the whole book being baffled by and disapproving of her helplessness, and it detracted from my enjoyment of the story.That said, the story was pretty decent. It's just the sort of thing you might find in any other superhero media, and so I would definitely recommend it to fans of superhero comics and movies.