Review: Guardians of the Galaxy: Collect Them All

Guardians of the Galaxy: Collect Them All by Corinne Duyvis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Corinne Duyvis has published two original novels, and for her third book, she's giving us some nice little Marvel YA. Though it's not my favorite Marvel YA - that honor, of course, still goes to Margaret Stohl's Black Widow books - Duyvis gives us a pretty unique and unexpected novel that proves to be a quick, fun read. It's not perfect, though. Some of the characterization feels a little off to me - Quill comes across as less respectful of women than even his film counterpart, Gamora feels a tad underdeveloped, and Rocket...well, he's a scene-stealer for sure, but Duyvis' insistence on liberally filling his dialogue with made-up sci-fi swear words like "flark" and "d'ast" and "krutacking," in addition to the more standard "freaking," feels pretty out of place, as does his nicknaming of Gamora as "Gam" or, worse, "Gammy." But around these flaws, Duyvis gives us a story just as thought-provoking as her original novels - when Groot gets cloned and each clone's existence saps a little more of the original's power, is it ethical to collect them and wipe them out, or keep them alive and well-cared-for?

There are no easy answers.

Keep in mind before going into this book that it's not really related to the movies, despite featuring the same band of five Guardians. It wouldn't take place between the two volumes released thus far, so unlike Stohl's Black Widow books, it's really not explicitly part of the MCU. But if you like Marvel, and you like Guardians, you owe it to yourself to pick this book up and give it a good read.

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