Review: Nimona

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was one of those bonus offerings from Audible for those of us who have monthly memberships. It looked fun, so I gave it a shot, and it turns out to be reasonably fun.

The book – I “read” an adaptation of the webcomic which I understand will eventually lead to a feature film – opens with an acknowledgement that its setting is so clichéd as to be a mockery. It’s a kingdom with a too-good-to-be-true hero in Goldenloin (the name tells you the tone we’re looking at) even though the real good guy is Ballister Blackheart. The two are old lovers, which is an interesting twist even though it’s rendered as unremarkable.

Again, all of that is so familiar that it’s a warning sign. I’d certainly have bailed on this if it weren’t so short.

The part that ultimately distinguishes this, though, is Nimona herself. We meet her as another kind of cliché, a little girl who wants to be a super-villain sidekick – which leads her to hooking up with Blackheart.

Except, [SEMI-SPOILER:] she isn’t a cliché, especially not in this context. She’s actually a kind of homicidal maniac, killing off all sorts of people for little provocation. She wants to hurt others, and she wants to commit crimes.

It’s a reasonably striking concept, and I enjoyed the provocation. What do you do with a creature who seems like a little girl in a fairy tale parody when she turns out to be a very real and ruthless killer?

Stevenson is mostly about having fun here, though, so she doesn’t push this all that far. Plus, there are some irritations in the way the cast performs this. The actors are all strong, but there are too many sound effects and awkward narrator intrusions. It’s too aware of its own jokes when, at least as I understand the underlying dark joke, we ought to be having it all dawn on us only slowly.

So, I did find things to like here, and I do think it has its successes. Ultimately, though, this is so much about exploring cliché that, while attempting to subvert it, it most just endorses it. For a time, I figured this for a two-star book. In the end, I think it’s really a 2.5.


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