Review of "Villainessly Blonde" by Sophia DeSensi

Score: 90/100 (9.0 out of 10)

Villainessly Blonde by Sophia DeSensi is like The Boys meets The Bachelor!

It combines the mutant powers and pariah-treatment of something like X-Men with the reality-TV spectacle and drama of something like The Jersey Shore.

Add some type-1 diabetes into the mix, and you have an exotic recipe for what seems to be a pretty interesting premise. But what about the execution?

Were we entertained and/or engaged by this book? Well, the answer is mixed and nuanced.

This is one of those books in which we see the potential and we think we know where the author was trying to go. We're just not sure if it quite jived with us, but we commend the effort.

This book follows Charlie Green, a social-media creator and influencer in Nautville who happens to be a “Glitch” (comparable to a mutant in X-Men) with a subtle mind-influence ability.

Charlie is trying to keep her life steady and honest while the crowd keeps asking for a show. A chance encounter draws her into the orbit of Will, a decent and quietly funny Glitch who fronts a glossy dating series that treats superpowered people like a ratings hook. Hey, that's pretty neat, honestly. We just weren't braced or prepared for it considering that the opening note made us think that this was going to be some kind of medical drama centered around a patient or characters with type-1 diabetes.

Anyway, around Charlie, Will, and the others spins a bright carousel of producers, a smiling host who solves problems when the cameras love it, and a public that flips from adoring to hateful or suspicious in a heartbeat (as the public tends to do). They read into things, they jump to conclusions, and they turn on people/characters. If you've watched reality shows or have been on social media for a minute or two, you know how that goes.

This book actually does a decent job at showing how our feelings toward people and events in the media are manipulated and outright manufactured by the higher-ups and the powers-that-be. Naturally, every episode of the show is calibrated and controlled (to an extent), all with the intention to stir drama and controversy to get higher ratings (and, ultimately, money).

It's really not fair to the people who are demonized and vilified in the process.

Charlie, as the title suggests, is the victim of this throughout the book. She is portrayed throughout the reality show as a heelish figure, despite readers knowing she's actually good and decent. The reality show's edit highlights her sharpest reactions, trims away context, and stitches in ominous music and cutaways to make neutral moments look calculating. Confessionals are framed so that her boundaries read as attitude, and producer prompts bait her into lines that can be clipped into a “problem contestant” arc. When she practices routine type one diabetes care on screen (which we'll talk more about later), the show treats it like an interruption to the fun, which subtly codes her as difficult rather than responsible. On social media, the same beat gets spun as vanity or attention seeking, then echoed by commenters who never saw the full scene.

The result is a textbook villain edit. A charity executive’s public spin keeps suspicion simmering, the host only “fixes” situations that boost the episode, and the audience is primed to assume intent from reaction shots and cuts. The book is sharp about how easy it is to manufacture a "bad" or "problematic" girl and how hard it is to claw back nuance once the narrative hardens. To its credit, it also gives Charlie small, sincere wins that puncture the caricature, reminding us that real people live under the edits and that choosing honesty over optics is its own kind of heroism.

Charlie reads as image conscious yet resilient, someone who wants to be seen for who she is rather than for what her power or her follower count can provide. Will works as a steady counterweight who learns to push back when the script stops matching what matters. The tension comes from the gap between sincere connection and the narrative the show wants to sell, and the book keeps asking who gets to tell the story. If you enjoy character driven superhero romance with reality TV sparkle, this delivers warmth and momentum, even if its tilt toward spectacle will land better for some readers than others.

Like we alluded to, this book has a lot of promise and a lot to offer. You really have to open your mind and put aside your preconceived notions of what you think this book is going to be like. Comic/superhero fans come into fiction expecting fights and action. Fans of medical dramas expect, well... medical drama. Fans of reality shows expect, well... real (or real-seeming) drama they can sink their teeth into. This seems to be more of a romantic-comedy than anything else, but even the comedy and romance gets a bit lost at times. For example, there's a random bit about gummy bears that just didn't hit for us. Also, it doesn't quite feel as romantic when there are like 20-something women vying for Will's attention and everyone is manipulating the narrative.

It's strange how this book, by trying to fit into all of these genres at once, doesn't seem to satisfy either one adequately. It feels clunky, awkward, and stretched thin like a medieval army that decided to invest into too many horses, crossbows, and trebuchets while only having 200 infantry.
There are aspects of this book that just seem mundane and dull. Like, there's this whole glitchball/futuristic baseball arc/scene that we're guessing was supposed to build camaraderie between the characters. And, yeah, reality shows do things like that to try to leave room for drama to happen, but it just didn't excite us.

Speaking of other characters... Beyond Charlie and Will, the supporting cast adds a little more color and adds a little more spice. Dude Dixon, the ever-smiling host, greases the wheels when it makes great television and nudges scenes toward maximum sizzle. Margery, the charity executive, weaponizes PR to keep suspicion alive. Conrad, the model ex, sparks the initial humiliation and later offers a flimsy mea culpa. The producers act as unseen hands that shape confessionals and conflicts. The wider field of vigilantes and contestants, including flashy figures like Poison Menace and Steelita, provides contrast that highlights how different powered people chase clout, safety, or change. Together they form the ecosystem that frames Charlie as a problem to manage. That is why her small, honest wins feel a bit more earned than they would've been otherwise.

But if you're expecting this to be a superhero novel in which a band of superpowered good guys fight the baddies... there's some of that here, but it's rather sparse, mostly via Will and the Nitro-Force group with The Agency policing them (which is why we compared it to The Boys). None of the fights are really that epic or spectacular, unfortunately, which we found disappointing. Something else you have to keep in mind is that, despite the big opening message about this being about type-1 diabetes and how the author wanted to be sensitive and accurate in portraying the disease, this book is barely about type-1 diabetes. Despite the big note, we don't even know why that's in here. It seems tacked-on and unnecessary.

The counterargument you could justifiably make is:
1. It's humanizing (for the protagonist)
2. It provides representation for people living with type-1 diabetes

Well, one or more of us has diabetes and just found its inclusion to be like garnishment or window dressing. It really didn't need to be in here.

We're tempted to say that this book really started to lose and bore us after a while. We can't quite put our fingers on it, but it wasn't clicking with and engaging us the way we wanted it to. Humorously, the random little scene that woke us back up was when some of the characters say "I'm a Glitch!" and someone shouts, "We know. Shut up." The reason this random scene resonated with us is because the whole "I'm a Glitch" thing, and other aspects of this book, just seemed really tedious and distracting along with the "I have diabetes" angle. It seems really tacked on, and it was really becoming annoying and frustrating to keep reading about these things when they really seemed detached from the core romantic plot. The best way we can describe it is like we want these two people to finally sleep together, but they're wearing inflatable T-Rex bodysuits over pirate costumes (figuratively). It just seems like there's so much unnecessary fluff and padding in the way.

Sophia DeSensi is a very imaginative and capable writer. She's actually a previous OCA winner for the short story "Tiny Hearts" in Dragons of a Different Tail, one of the best stories in that collection. So, she's more than capable of producing compelling stories.

In the end, Villainessly Blonde is a glossy, good-hearted mashup that shines in quiet character beats and winks at the spectacle machine, but it rarely commits long enough to any one lane to feel fully satisfying. Readers who enjoy character driven romance with caped flair and reality TV satire will find warmth, momentum, and a few memorable set pieces. Readers who want sustained superhero combat or a medical drama centered on type one diabetes will likely feel under served.

It includes a promising concept, likable leads, and sharp observations about manufactured narratives, undercut by a scattered genre focus and light action.

Check it out on Amazon!