I wanted this book to be more than it was. Based on the cover and title alone, I figured some girls are or were going to become superheroes and I was all in. What I was not expecting was the background where this all took place. It takes place during WW2. For many this was the “golden age of comic books”. But superheroes existed in more than just the funny pages. They were real people and since the war started, they have all disappeared.

Enter Josie, an irish immigrant who helps her mom with her brothers, and works at the dinner to help get rent paid while her father is fighting overseas. But Josies is only 12. She really wants to be a puzzler - someone who can break codes and read secret messages. She wants to do her part for the war effort. Going to take the official puzzlers test was scary, but quickly became maddening when Josie and the other girls watch Mr. Hissler toss their papers in the trash and only keep the papers from the boys.

It’s through her indignation and other crazy happenings at the test that Josie meets Mae and Akiko. Mae lives with her grandmother who is a librarian and helping to set up Philidiplia’s library, and Akiko is with her extended family because her parents are being held in a japanese internment camp in San Francisco. Through some crazy action that is not quite explained these girls end up a superhero trio. What is their official job, they have no idea, but in the moment they will do whatever they can to survive and make sure no one else is harmed.

Part of what makes this book interesting is that it is part graphic novel and part standard novel. I was expecting to like this, but unfortunately I didn’t. The Graphic novel portions were used for the high action scenes. I question this tactic because it was done for effect or because the author could not effectively write an action scene. Because the graphic is not effectively done. It relies too much on the picture without wording to help the reader keep up. It’s too little. A reader ends up lost. Then you have the cliches and the outright eye roll scenarios that make you want to stop reading (or if this was nickelodeon, change the channel).

As mentioned before I wanted to like this more than I did. It was good, but it wasn’t great. Part of me wonders if that is because it is set up for future novels in the series, or just because they were trying to squeeze it into a middle grade novel. There are so many concepts, so much going on that is not explored, or just seems tossed in for effect that it appears more of a mishmash than a fully comprehensible story. Maybe the series will get better as it goes on, but I will never know as I have no desire to find out more.
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