This book was a fascinating reversal of our usual superhero tale. This one is not only told from the perspective of the villains of the piece, but, even more interestingly, from the perspective of one of their henchwomen. In this story, henches are often contract employees. The story starts with Anna, a novice hench, attending a job fair where she has the opportunity to interview for temporary employment as a hench to a villain. She’s not been doing very well – she lives in a tiny apartment, is behind on her bills, and has spent her working life so far bouncing from one temp gig to another.
But she is about to embark on a series of events that will change her fate drastically. First, she gets hired as a hench. Then she is in attendance at a kidnapping that is stormed by one of the most powerful superheroes, and is injured in the clash. As a result of her injury, several things happen. First, she ends up in hospital. Second, she loses her employment and can’t pay her bills. Third, she is evicted and moves onto her friend’s couch. And fourth, she begins a vendetta to expose all the damage that has been caused by the so-called heroes, and she begins researching and publishing her findings.
This endeavour makes her friend deeply uncomfortable as it puts a target on Anna’s back – and the apartment they’re currently sharing. Their relationship becomes more and more strained. Then Anna is talent scouted by a notoriously reclusive super villain who has been impressed by her work. She is scooped up and taken to interview for a position working in his organization. Before she can even blink she has been hired, installed in a company apartment, and all her belongings have been collected and delivered for her. Still easily exhausted from her recovery, Anna falls asleep. She doesn’t remember until she wakes up that her friend has no idea what happened to her, and will have just returned from work to find Anna and all of her belongings are gone. This oversight is the nail in the coffin of this friendship, and suddenly Anna finds herself alone in an entirely new life.
I won’t go into what happens from this point forward because spoilers, but I will say that there is a lot of action, a lot of conflict and a lot of character development (or revelation). I think the part I enjoyed most in this book wasn’t any of the action, it was Anna’s character developing from an uncertain, insecure hench to a powerful player in her own right. And that this happened as an overlay to a physical injury and recovery that has left her physically damaged. I appreciated the representation not only of disability (even if not for the entire book), but of the resilience that experiences like hers can instill and the strength that can be learned through survival. Which isn’t to glamorize injury or trauma – the book makes it clear that, though she survives and determinedly moves forward, she also suffers from several debilitating trauma responses, and her laser focus on the project she undertakes to distract her from her suffering cuts her off from a healthy relationship that was good for her.
Before I read this book I didn’t expect that much from it. I liked the idea of the twist in protagonist, I liked the idea of the main character being a woman, and a woman who is injured at that. But this book took this idea and added layer upon layer of exploration of what this world would be like, the dynamics that would exist between colleagues and friends, the ways in which being on either side of this good/evil dichotomy would affect the characters, and explored themes such as trauma, family, friendship, morality, vengeance and the very basis of right and wrong. There was so much thought-provoking content in this book that while it wasn’t necessarily my favourite book of the year, I was nevertheless intrigued by the experience and would definitely recommend it to anyone whose interest is piqued!
Anna does boring things for terrible people because even criminals need office help and she needs a job. Working for a monster lurking beneath the surface of the world isn’t glamorous. But is it really worse than working for an oil conglomerate or an insurance company? In this economy?
As a temp, she’s just a cog in the machine. But when she finally gets a promising assignment, everything goes very wrong, and an encounter with the so-called “hero” leaves her badly injured. And, to her horror, compared to the other bodies strewn about, she’s the lucky one.
So, of course, then she gets laid off.
With no money and no mobility, with only her anger and internet research acumen, she discovers her suffering at the hands of a hero is far from unique. When people start listening to the story that her data tells, she realizes she might not be as powerless as she thinks.
Because the key to everything is data: knowing how to collate it, how to manipulate it, and how to weaponize it. By tallying up the human cost these caped forces of nature wreak upon the world, she discovers that the line between good and evil is mostly marketing. And with social media and viral videos, she can control that appearance.
It’s not too long before she’s employed once more, this time by one of the worst villains on earth. As she becomes an increasingly valuable lieutenant, she might just save the world.
A sharp, witty, modern debut, Hench explores the individual cost of justice through a fascinating mix of Millennial office politics, heroism measured through data science, body horror, and a profound misunderstanding of quantum mechanics. – Goodreads
Book Title: Hench
Author: Natalie Zina Walschots
Series: Yes – Hench #1
Edition: Audiobook
Published By: William Morrow
Released: September 22, 2020
Genre: Fiction, Superheroes/villains, Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Pages: 403
Date Read: January 2-7, 2024
Rating: 6/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.03/5 (21,779 ratings)
