I wanted to like this book. I started to like it through the first 20 pages. But, maybe I'm getting old. What really bothered me were the women. I know there is certain genre this book falls into. I was just not expecting it. Here are the women characters I've encountered thus far:

- woman getting beaten to a pulp by an escaped prisoner
- woman knocked unconscious by an escaped prisoner
- two strippers held hostage by a super villian
- teenage girl giving protag's brother a handjob at every opp
- teenage girl that likes to have phone sex

Maybe I'm getting old...

( )

Very quick read and very fun. The story does jump around quite a bit, but I was quite fine with that since to me it helped support the overall narrative. As for the sex, well, that was all fine for me too. Considering the way movie stars, musicians, and athletes are portrayed in our culture with regard to, um, access to sex, putting superheroes in that same category seemed pretty natural. ( )

My full Prepare to Die review can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

So within the first hour I was hooked and hate to admit this but there was a line that really rang true to me and, hopefully, many other guys.

"I allowed myself a shower piss, one of man's greatest pleasures, if women could see us pissing in the showers the way we're not bothered by it running down our legs, I'm not sure if they'd ever sleep with us again."

After that line I was all in and had to find out more about Reaver and the circumstances of his impending death or execution. Also this line really sets the tone for the rest of the audiobook. Reaver is an "invincible" hero, many would say that isn't true and that he simply heals extremely fast, who has met his match. All of the other "good" supers have been killed off by the "bad" supers and he is the last one, a very heavy weight to carry. Finding himself caught by his nemesis Octagon, as a gun was being held to Reaver he was told "Prepare to Die", with the great response of "How long do I have?" Ultimately settling on two weeks before Reaver has to submit to execution he finds it necessary to finally do somethings he has been meaning to do yet couldn't find the time, being needed to save the population all the time. Prepare to Die was a very dark, gritty and melancholy story, defiantly not for the those who are looking for a PG Superman vs. Lex Luthor, please look elsewhere, as this audiobook is full of foul language, sexual situation and stories, love and loss, brutal graphic gore and violence. With much of the story telling back story of how Reaver became a super and what he has done with his power and the internal struggle of doing what he wants or doing the hero thing torments him to no end, almost to the point where I wanted to grab Reaver and shake and slap him to stop whining. Paul Tobin was able to create relatable characters that brought the heroes down to earth ans human beings that are full of their own issues that when left undealt with, starts to eat them up inside until they can find closure. With a few plot twists and turns I was left smiling in my cubicle while the end credits were being read and thinking to myself how much Reaver was like me and how I have to tell and show my wife how much I truly love her.

Audiobook provided for review by Audible. ( )

I liked this superhero novel more than I expected too. Perhaps overly violent, it owes a lot to the post-modern genre introduced by Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. The hero Reaver, has a power which reduces the life of people he punches (if he doesn't flat out hit them hard enough to kill him), so he has a moral decision to make whenever he's in a battle. ( )

Guys, I am such a sucker for superhero novels. I thought [b:Soon I Will Be Invincible|645180|Soon I Will Be Invincible|Austin Grossman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320554514s/645180.jpg|955983] was a heap of fun. If I read stuff like this occasionally you won't judge me too much, right?