Athena Villaverde

Take one sweet but naive Starfish Girl (Ohime), add a sea anemone assassin/mercenary (Timbre), mix in a large bowl full of mutated fish people (the dome), and chase with a barnacle-covered megalomaniac scientist (Dr. Ichii) bent on discovering Ohime's secret, and you have Starfish Girl by Athena Villaverde. Starfish Girl makes me feel like I'm reading a novelization of an anime movie and feels like it was ripped straight from an animator's drawing table. That's not to say that it's bad; not in the slightest. In fact, I would call it a plus because I could vividly imagine each character and sequence in my head as if I were watching it on the screen.

The story moves at an incredible pace. Don't be fooled by it seemingly short 160 pages. This book is packed with action and story, and a lot happens in its 160 pages, more than I've seen happen in some 1000-page books. There's no pausing for descriptions of scenes or people other than what is necessary, which makes the story move so fast that the reader can feel out of breath in just the first half of the book. In fact, at one point I checked the page number I was on thinking that I've got to be close to the end since so much had happened from the start, but was shocked to discover that I was only halfway through. I'll admit that it can get a little exhausting, but it's a good kind of tired, like after a workout, except it's your brain hitting the punching bag, and the punching bag can hit you back.

Two words of warning:

1) Don't expect answers to everything; you won't get them. You will get answers to the important questions concerning the plot, but other than that, when you ask “Why...?” expect the answer to simply be “Because.”
2) In case the previous description hasn't already made you aware of this, despite it's cute cover and innocent title, this is not a book for kids, or for the squeamish. There are several bloody action sequences and highly sexual situations.

You have been warned.

Still, Starfish Girl is great fun, with that anime feel and, while appropriately part of the Bizarro publishing line, still evokes the strong feeling of that classic science fiction tradition.

4 out of 5 stars.… (meer)

In Athena Villaverde’s, Starfish Girl (Eraserhead Press, 2010), industrial fiction meets Hayao Miyazaki’s, Spirited Away (Studio Ghibli, 2001). Despite facing constant danger in an underwater town being devoured by a fungus that’s turning fish folk psychotic, and where half-men, half-sea creature mob goons donning mechanic appendages wreak havoc without consequence, the little starfish girl’s tenacity to find others who are “nice” is as steadfast as Chihiro’s devotion in Spirited Away to changing her parents back to their human form.

Unlike Chihiro, Ohime’s parents cannot be saved, and with their posthumous instructions for her to try and save humanity, she must set off on an adventure of her own in an unknown landscape that alternates between beautiful and noxious. Although considered by many reviewers as “cute” when compared to other titles in the Bizarro fiction genre, Starfish Girl proves to be just as cut-throat and perverse. Yet, Villaverde craftily placates the gore factor by splattering the blood on a backdrop of elaborate coral buildings and conch encrusted homes, and constantly introduces endearing characters who, however different from one another, have in common the desire for a peaceful and safe civilization.

Bizarro-veteran John Skipp has the right idea in describing Villaverde’s style as “emotional” since the budding author leaves no feeling untouched in the spectrum of human psychology. For any reader new to the genre, or Bizarro fans who are curious about Athena Villaverde’s Starfish Girl, the novel is as punchy as it is sweet, as innocent as it is ferocious, and damn well worth picking up.… (meer)

This is not your normal average everyday little girl. Welcome to bizarro, welcome to the dome - here comes Starfish girl.

Ohime is a literally a starfish girl, a very hypercolored starfish girl. She is purple, she is cute, and as innocent as the day is long. Timbre, her traveling companion and BFF, is the exact opposite in every possible way. Where Ohime is soft and loving, Timbre is a bad mamma jamma.

Ohime has a secret, and she can't share it with just anyone. Only the good people are allowed to know. Well who are the good people? Only Ohime knows, and right now, she's not giving anything away. But when she does, she will try to save the last remaining humans (now mutated to all sorts of fishy types) from the yellow algae that began the mutation process in the first place.

When I first saw the cover of this bizarro book - I really thought it was going to be a fairly girly book. The little girl is too cute, and everything is just so dang girly purple. I didn't even get 10 pages in before my initial idea of this book was shot to pieces. There is no lack of action, blood, gore and interesting copulating activities in between the very purple covers.

I would say if you have no yet read a bizarro book, this could be a good one to start with - it gives you a good feel of what could be out there, but these are not books for the easily offended, nauseated, or pretty much anyone who can't take a joke. There is sex involved, decapitation, and vaginal ordeals. If you ever wanted to know what a starfish would use while on their 'cycle', wonder no longer, that and many other mind boggling questions get answered in this book. Stay tuned for more insight in the lifestyles of the gilled and briney.… (meer)

Great fight scenes. Action, Action, Action. There's a lot to love here. Quest that takes the reader through uniquely imagined landscapes and cityscapes. Great brothel scene. Kick-ass unapologetic mature female hero. Revengeful Vagina Dentata. Completed by a perplexing, yet naively appealing, very well dressed pubescent heroine. [a:Athena Villaverde|4468616|Athena Villaverde|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1291061095p2/4468616.jpg] is going to have a film-deal someday when this story is optioned/adapted for the screen. It could become a cult classic or with the right budget, soundtrack and direction it could be a blockbuster. In the meantime, I would line up for a graphic novel edition too. PLEASE?Is it Tolstoy? No, but who cares?! [a:Athena Villaverde|4468616|Athena Villaverde|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1291061095p2/4468616.jpg]'s first novel is a one-of-a-kind story that pushes gender boundaries within the genre and isn't dull for a moment.… (meer)