Hench was not as good as I really wanted it to be. I love the premise and the blurb made it sound super interesting. Maybe it was because I listened to the audiobook, but I just didn't connect with any of the characters.

One of my favorite books in this subgenre and possibly of the year. Was not able to anticipate a single twist and loved almost every page of it (the one exception being the press conference near the beginning, but which definitely had me on the edge of my seat).

Smart, funny, and ruthlessly sharp, Hench reads like The Office and Avengers: Age of Ultron had a baby, and that baby is mad as hell. The concept beneath it - a low-level henchperson to supervillains who happens to be a bit of a stats nerd calculates just how much damage superheroes actually cost the world they claim to be saving - is brilliant. But the execution of that concept is just as strong, which is, tragically, not always the case with a great idea. Anna is a fantastically interesting, compelling character in a fascinating superheroic world, while the action clips along at a fast pace (even when said action is more like intense data analysis than an epic super-battle) (though there are some of those, too). I'd love to see Hench as a movie; it's searing, cinematic, and rich with serious ideas about heroism and morality, while still being extremely funny.


Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Captivating, suspenseful, and driven by magnificent characters. This book has all the elements of top-notch science fiction. Normally I don't like it when someone says "I could not put this book down" because it seems like hyperbole, but in this case I really mean it — I did not want to stop reading it, and I kept sneaking in a few more pages every chance I could. It's that good.

Like many young women, Anna needs to have work to support herself. Since she hasn't found a permanent career, she signs up with a temporary agency that specializes in supplying help to the villains that oppose superheroes and finds herself a low-level hench. Even villains need help answering the phone, setting schedules, typing up notes, etc. But her life changes the day her assignment is to accompany her employer, standing beside him as he gave a press conference so that there would be women in the crowd.

The biggest superhero in the world, Supercollider, breaks into the conference. In his attempt to get to the villain, he creates havoc in the audience. Anna is badly hurt but fares better than those who are killed by the falling debris. After she gets out of the hospital and is recuperating, she gets laid off to add insult to injury.

While laid up, Anna starts to create a spreadsheet to stave off her boredom and pain. She calculates the cost in both monetary terms and human pain and suffering that the antics of superheroes causes. She is not surprised to find out that there is a cost but shocked at the enormity of it. Soon she is obsessed with her project, researching all the heroes and the costs their antics cause.

The biggest villain, Leviathan, hears about Anna's work and brings her on staff. Now she has an entire division to help her with research and to devise ways to bring daily irritation to the heroes along with a plan to bring about their downfall by exposing the pain they bring along with their help. She even finds herself becoming attached to Leviathan who is the scariest individual living. When he is captured, Anna is in charge of rescuing him. Can she do it and emerge unscathed?

This is a totally original, delightful read. Anna is typical of young workers starting out and trying to find a way to make an impact. Her skills and insight lead to her being able to break out of the ranks and rise to prominence in her organization. It also probes the meaning of friendship. Anna loses some friends along the way who can't handle what she does for a living. She also makes new friends, one that she knows are willing to do anything to help her achieve her goals. This book is recommended for fantasy readers.

*I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*

This is such a great story! The main character is a hench who gets wrongs and is determined to find out all the damage heroes actually do. Sure, they save people, but how much are they actually costing everyone? Is the financial and physical damage done worth having superheroes?

Now, this isn't a book where the villains are the good guys -- they still do villainous acts, but she job is to attack the heroes and the public's perception of them. The main characters are villains with gray to darker morals. It is an interesting look and not the type of main character I've ever read before.

It isn't an action-packed book and her job is more of a desk job, so expect more intrigue, less battles. There is a lot of banter though and great quotes. The book made me think about things and now I'm looking more at the damage done in superhero movies. It is so well written and I loved all the characters. While it started as a 3 star read for me, it firmly landed at a 5 by the end and is one I may even re-read in the future.

I will be reading more books by this author in the future.

A clever twist on the superhero genre. Thoughtful, funny and fresh. I’m looking forward to more from the author.

Pop culture and superheroes go hand-in-hand. There’s the Marvel Cinematic Universe, of course, and so many reboots and reincarnations of Batman over the years that I’m daunted by the task of counting them all. Hench’s main character, Anna, however, would likely know the number–she’s a spreadsheet aficionado who lives in a world much like ours except that superheroes and supervillains are real, an almost mundane addition to everyday life.

Superheroes and supervillains, however, aren’t all they’re cracked up to be in Anna’s world. And in this vein, Natalie Zina Walschots’ Hench is similar to the comic book series and recent television adaptation of The Boys, where a corporate conglomeration uses superpowered people as (among other things) a product to sell to the masses.


The Boys paints a darker picture of how injecting superpowered people into society would actually play out, but the story Walschots tells us is far from rosy. In Hench, we follow the journey of Anna, a number-cruncher who works for a temp agency that provides staffing support for villains. (Similar to The Boys, the superpowered heroes and villains each have organizational enterprises that shape and influence their impact on society.)

At the beginning of the novel, Anna is a nobody. And like many of us fellow nobodies, she is largely unmotivated by the day jobs she jumps from. She also has no real friends except for June, a moderately-powered person who the temp agency assigns to villains who can take advantage of her superheightened sense of smell.

[rest of review at tor.com link below]

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Hench is is the origin story you never knew you needed. The story follows Anna, a Hench person for super villains who can’t seem to catch a break- that is until a run in with a hero leaves her leg shattered, and her prospects sparse. The story goes in some really interesting directions from there, let me tell you.

There are few books that I feel so genuinely conflicted about. I have been debating a star rating, and still am not fully settled on the 3.5 stars I have given the novel. The concept of this book is so well executed and explored. I found the world to be so fascinating and well done, I couldn’t get enough of it. My only complaint about the world building is that I wanted more of it! In addition to that, the protagonist (or anti-hero, I guess) is very personable and intelligent. I think this book has a lot of very strong female characters, which is also awesome.

All that being said, the pacing was all over the place for me, right up to the very end. I would be super engaged, and then super disinterested, and that happened a handful of times. I also felt that the ending was quite unsatisfying, at least for me personally. I definitely get what the author was trying to do, but I found myself saying “wait, that’s it?” when I was finished. She is apparently considering writing a sequel, which I would definitely read, as I feel it could make redeem the overall story at play.

I think this story has a lot of fun with its idea, and the concept is brought to life with great success. I had some issues with the author’s narrative choices, but overall, I would recommend you try this book out for yourself!

Thank you Netgalley and William Morrow for an early copy of this book. Sorry it’s so late. 😅

It's not often I rate a book 5/5 - I try to reserve those perfect ratings for books that either push their genre to new places or create an entirely new genre of their own. Hench falls strongly into the second category, creating a subgenre of "superheros but the villains are actually people, and the better people" that I can only hope other authors with as much skill and passion are able to help fill. Walschots does an amazing job at worldbuilding - it's almost too easy to see her developments and changes happening in our world. Her characters feel lifelike, with their flaws and decisions traceable to accidents and situations from their past that have been allowed to fester and grow authentically. Walschots also is able to inject social commentary into her fantastic novel, forcing the reader to examine the idea of "who watches the watchers" or "who guards the guards" - an important concept in today's society. All in all, Hench is a fantastic novel that I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone.

I picked this up specifically because I was looking for some supervillain/henchwoman vibes, and this book gave it to me, albeit in very tiny increments. We follow Anna in Comic Book Universe, where superheroes wreak havoc on ordinary people's lives. After an encounter with a superhero shatters Anna's femur, she begins investigating the numerical cost associated with superheroes: she's big on data and spreadsheets. It's basically her superpower. Her work catches the attention of Leviathan, a supervillain, who hires her to work for him, and she eventually works her way up to become his most trusted lieutenant by sabotaging heroes.

As we march along this sometimes slow-burn plot, there's some light discussions of heroism vs villainy and a lot of dark humor and some intense visceral violence (especially at the very end, hoo boy). I enjoy the superhero genre pretty casually, but I really love interrogations of the stark realities of the existence of superheroes. It's like, remember that Superman movie, where Superman utterly annihilated Manhattan as he was fighting? Anna pulls the data on all of that.

I really enjoyed Anna as a character; she's resilient, resentful, and brilliant. Loved her relationship with Leviathan, though I wish we'd gotten a bit more of it, particularly at the end (though it seems we're setting up for a sequel?). Also loved the casual diversity in this book!

I have no idea why fantasy representations of bureaucracy hit a real sweet spot for me but I love them, okay? Give me a novel where people with superpowers have spreadsheet making montages, and there's no way I'm not going to throw some stars at it. It's my jam!

I normally prefer my fantasy bureaucracy to be mixed with comedy, but this one mixed it with "a righteous send up of elements of society categorized as good vs. evil" and that also really worked.

Hench gives a crazy behind the scenes look at the unsung villains of the criminal mastermind world, the henches/henchpeople (gender-neutral version of henchmen) that enable the nefarious plots and schemes, and often get punched out by the heroes while their boss escapes.
For fans of when Homer Simpson went to work for Hank Scorpio, we follow Anna Traumedlove as she rises in the ranks from the hench temp agency competing for data entry jobs to more fieldwork and becoming invaluable to a cyborg supervillian named Leviathan.
She goes through many changes and meets crazy characters, while also taking some of the hard looks at the collateral damage of superheroes that you see in recent MCU and DCU properties, especially in this world that has a whole corporate spin control in place doing PR and support for heroes and shuffling aside the issues of property damage, injuries, etc. caused by these crazy battles.
A great mix of humor, tech, action, and character work -- lots of fun and well-deserving its accolades.

I really enjoyed reading this book. The character development was subtle in a myriad of ways, and the plot moves along quickly enough to keep interest. I could have used a little more expansion around the ending of the book, but on the whole found the experience very enjoyable.

An interesting perspective in the broader superhero genre. Hench follows Anna, a temp who gets hired to be a henchman by a supervillain by the name of Leviathan. Equipped with technological skills (including Excel proficiency) and a hatred of superheroes, Anna sets out to ruin the reputation of superheroes and showcase the damage they create. A great exploration of the behind the scenes work normally omitted from these stories.

A fun twist on the superhero genre. Anna is a hench, which means she contracts for the villains, just to make a living. But, when she literally gets caught in the crossfire, she starts to reexamine who the real bad guy might be. Her mathematical calculations start to reveal that the heroes might not be as heroic as everyone once thought, and she discovers that her data can be used to change the world. With complex characters, a plot that delivers surprises that subvert the traditional genre, and a dash of sarcastic humor to lighten the mood, this one will be sure to please.

More exciting than I expected. Reminded me of The Boys. I think the punishment of the main hero was a bit much. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

4.5. In an already bloated genre, it's difficult to find media that subvert the traditional superhero-awe mentality without incorporating toxic masculinity. Walschots has managed to do so, and she does it well.

The tonal shift at the beginning may deceive the readers; it starts with a sardonic examination of the world of "temp" work for supervillains. Anna exudes sarcasm and shares her grievances with best friend June in a humorous yet self-deprecating way; I thought this would continue through the rest of the book, but an incident with a hero spurs Anna in motion. What follows is an incredibly detailed account of Anna's professional journey as a villain "auditor." Walschots excels at creating compelling side characters; when Anna's personal life falters, she finds strength in her professional relationships, some of which develop into strong friendships. The pacing is slow at times, but it works well in the spots where Walscots describes Anna's operation. The ending is brutal, and it only makes me want to read more about Anna.

If you're a fan of the anti-hero and don't mind reading another villain-centered story, this one's for you.

I went into this with a poor grasp of the plot, thinking it was from the perspective of a superhero. It’s an interesting take on the superhero industry, but I struggled to get connected with the protagonist and couldn’t stick with it. I stopped about a quarter in but appreciate the chance to review!

Anna is a low-level henchwoman-for-hire when she becomes an accidental casualty in one of hero Supercollider's rescues. Laid up with a spiral fracture to her leg, Anna starts running the numbers on how much property damage and loss of life these heroes cost the city. Before long, she has started a blog and gained the attention of Leviathan, a supervillain who thinks she has potential. Next thing she knows, Anna is climbing up the villainous corporate ladder, scheming against heroes while manipulating her spreadsheets.

This is a wonderfully creative book that manages to examine both the nature of heroes and cubicle life, with plenty of feminist snark and humor to boot. Fans of Catherynne Valente's The Refrigerator Monologues and Austin Grossman's Soon I Will Be Invincible will LOVE this book.