This book was So. Much. Fun.
Obvious warning here, though. If the title and cover didn’t clue you in, this book has sex in it. The sex is awkward and funny and causes time to stop, but still. It’s sex.
Suzie has a very special power. Her orgasms are magical. THEY CAN STOP TIME. And while this is undoubtedly a cool superpower, it also makes her pretty lonely, once she discovers she is the only one this happens to. Until she discovers she isn’t the only this happens to, that is. Suzie meets Jon. They have an instant connection, mostly brought on by their shared superpower and the alleviation of their loneliness, but also because they’re genuinely compatible and like each other, as human beings.
The sex-positivity of the whole thing is not my favorite part of why I liked this book so much, but it’s a big part nonetheless. And it’s not so much that the book is going, sex is good! Sex is fun! Sex is healthy! Sex is intimate! (Although it does imply all those things.) It’s more like this book explores sexuality as a key part of identity. My favorite bits resonated with me not because they were sexy or funny (although they were sometimes both of those things). They resonated with me because they seemed so intimate and personal. Suzie and Jon are normal people. They are looking for love and human connection, just like the rest of us. That they happen to find it while stopping time with their naughty bits is just part of the package.
Because this book is really, really funny also. The whole thing just works. The artwork is bright and clear, and the style is almost cartoony, and yet not. Suzie and Jon look like real people, in that they have real proportions. They’re a little chubby, have big noses and butts. They’re cute, but average. They’re also mischieveous and clever and generous and sad and a whole bunch of other things at once. They’re also criminals, once they decide to go all Robin Hood and steal from the bank where Jon works, the same bank that is threatening to foreclose the library Suzie works at. And then of course, the Sex Police show up and things get complicated, but that’s a story for another time.
For now, I will just say that I loved this book, and the only thing keeping me from giving it five stars is that I’m not sure the timeline of the story needed to be quite so wibbly-wobbly, and because it’s an ongoing comic, I’m not quite sure this sticks together well enough as a cohesive whole. A re-read will probably change my mind, though, because I’m easy like that.
Pun intended.
I was contemplating this book, now it goes on my yes list.
It’s so good!
This sounds really fun. Going on the list.
This is already on my list. My husband loves it. I have a terrifying amount of comics on my list that I keep passing up to read actual books instead. I could easily finish my Cannonball with trade paperbacks of comics if I wanted to, but I already have a backlog of more than ten books and the thought of adding another ten because I read comic books really fast just terrifies me. So I need to work on my backlog before I indulge with the comics. But when I do start reading them, this is very high up on my list.
Also, did you see that it just got nominated for a Hugo?
I did see that! I also saw that Vox Day was nominated several times and Words of Radiance wasn’t, so I question the nominations a little bit this year . . .
Well, yes, as the internet has been discussing since the nominations were made public, there have absolutely been shenaningans behind the scenes in some of the categories, at least.
Hugo shenanigans make me tired.