Listen. I’m not the biggest fan of superhero origin stories. I know, I know, they’re so much fun as there’s tragedy and hardship to be overcome and we all root for that one character who suddenly gets superpowers. Still, I’ve always had a hard time getting with the program. And maybe that was because I was just going with the flow of the same old story being recycled over and over again. But then, Faith happened to show up at my doorstep and would you believe it, I apparently can very much get behind a dog-obsessed, funny, gorgeous, plus-sized, bisexual and overall cute as a button girl becoming a superhero to save her town and the world at large from unspeakable doom and maybe, just maybe get the girl. Even if that girl isn’t all she’s cracked up to be, either. But that’s another story.
Julie Murphy basically looked at the good old superhero and villain origin stories, thought to herself ‘could be gayer’ and gave us the queer story our hearts desired but didn’t know they needed until they got it. Or at least that’s what I like to imagine after reading this and grinning my face off.
And what impressed me most about this story was that Faith’s body or her sexual orientation aren’t the most important thing about her. Instead, they are parts of her personality that obviously play a role in how her life goes but it’s not all she is. She is a girl very much worrying about her grandmother, a friend who makes mistakes and tries to remedy them, someone who tries their best and falls short despite having superpowers and that’s what makes Faith so relatable.
There was a lot going on in this story and I think the best thing that you can do is just go into it without knowing too much and strap in for a whirlwind of a story. Missing pets, people disappearing and magically reappearing in creepy hay mazes, flighty actresses, and watching your heroes turn out to be the villains, all while trying to deal with your grandma showing the first signs of dementia, an overbearing neighbour, and some friends that will always be there in your time of need, there’s not a dull moment in Faith’s story.
Putting a queer spin on a tale as old as time, Julie Murphy proves that everyone can be a superhero – no matter their size, gender, or sexual orientation – at heart, we all have the power to make the world a better place!
Faith is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of July 7th 2020.
Will you be picking up Faith? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
From Julie Murphy, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dumplin’, comes the first in a two-book origin story of Faith, a groundbreaking, plus-sized superhero from the Valiant Entertainment comics.
Faith Herbert is a pretty regular teen. When she’s not hanging out with her two best friends, Matt and Ches, she’s volunteering at the local animal shelter or obsessing over the long-running teen drama The Grove.
So far, her senior year has been spent trying to sort out her feelings for her maybe-crush Johnny and making plans to stay close to Grandma Lou after graduation. Of course, there’s also that small matter of recently discovering she can fly….
When the fictional world of The Grove crashes into Faith’s reality as the show relocates to her town, she can’t believe it when TV heroine Dakota Ash takes a romantic interest in her.
But her fandom-fueled daydreams aren’t enough to distract Faith from the fact that first animals, then people, have begun to vanish from the town. Only Faith seems able to connect the dots to a new.
