A Sapphic Supersized Superhero Origin Story ♥️ | ARC Review: Faith: Taking Flight (Faith Herbert Origin Story #1) by Julie Murphy

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 designer drug infiltrating her high school.

But when her investigation puts the people she loves in danger, she will have to confront her hidden past and use her newfound gifts—risking everything to save her friends and beloved town.

Disclaimer: I received a physical ARC of the book from Harper Collins International in exchange for an honest review! However, the thoughts, opinions expressed in the review are entirely my own.

Faith: Taking Flight is apparently an origin story of Faith Herbert – a superhero from the Harbinger Universe (I still have to get my hands on the Comics; so I went in without even knowing the back story!) – a bubbly, overweight and enthusiastic teenager who is all geeky and nerdy and all in all a girl that the insecure teenager in all of us would not only recognise but also empathize with.

The book starts off with Faith being headhunted into believing that she has not only has the ability to bring forth her super powers; but will also spend the whole summer with other kids, just like her; a fact that excites her since her two best friends, Ches and Matt will be spending their summer together; away!

But soon enough, she finds herself back with her grandmother, and an absolute need NOT to talk about her summer; not with anyone at all. So, she decides that she will keep everything that happened during the summer under the wraps; especially the fact that she has the ability to fly. A normal school year; hanging out with her best friends; volunteering at the animal shelter and having fun with her favourite show of all times – the fan page for the show anyways.

Things start to look up when her favourite TV Star shows up; and somehow against all odds; seems to be interested in her; romantically – and with a boy she always had a crush on; seems to be finally catching up the nerve to asks her out – this school year seems to be shapi9ng up to be quite interesting!

I was really quite excited to read this one –and I did enjoy it; but the pacing of the plotline felt a little off – the first of the book was absolute fluff; and more than getting to know you part – a part that was honestly stretched far too long and only had sprinkles of what would suddenly bomb into a whole lot of issue in the second half of the book – where to be fair, everything starts happening all at once – and I do mean everything; all the action, the plot twists – the reader gets bombarded with information from all the sides; together.

In spite of this; if you are hankering for an overweight, bisexual teenager; because you are one or identify as one – then trust me; this tends to be an empowering read (hence, the reason for my rating) – and there are still loose threads to knot up; so I am gonna keep an eye out for the sequel as well!