Pretty Girl Complex: The Story of A Superheroine


Book Description

A inspirational novel about a Miami-based dancer, who mothers a daughter before engaging in the super-heroic act of becoming a surrogate for another couple. • Explore the modern parenting option for surrogacy • Lean into emotions of being a co-parent • Learn about the IVF method and fertility clinics • Navigate conversations around adoption and gay parenting. The protagonist, Katie Washington, a career woman, dreams of becoming a dancer in Miami and joins an international entertainment company. Without wanting to give up on her career, and with a deep desire to become a mother, Katie's journey leads her into discovering about platonic parenting, or co-parenting and In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). She's left one night, overwhelmed, with a plethora of questions: What is IVF? Will IVF work? Are IVF babies different? How is IVF done? Is IVF wrong? After some tough decisions with her career & relationship, she has one daughter via In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) with her non-romantic partner, Luke, who helps her balance her career and motherhood, as she continues to soar her way to success in the business world. Katie, being a leader in female empowerment, manages a posse of women who come from all walks of life, including one woman, named Amy, who can't have a baby after contracting HIV. Katie learns about surrogacy from another dancer and offers to become a surrogate mom for Amy. She’s yet at another crossroads. What will be a surrogate mean to her life? Can a surrogate keep the baby? How does surrogacy work? Why be a surrogate? How will she feel after being a surrogate? What will others think? After tragedy strikes, Katie becomes an advocate for women and launches a surrogacy agency for a cause that is rising, both regionally and globally, which looks at modern-day issues and taboos around the topic like surrogacy for money, the health challenges, adoption and fostering alternatives, women freezing and preserving their eggs for future use, in case of illness, and gay/lesbian parents and surrogating. The inspirational novel speaks to surrogate mothers, women empowerment advocates, and rising female stars who are balancing their careers and their families, as well as to couples who have modern-day arrangements, such as non-romantic, co-parenting and living apart together. It also speaks to issues in the LGBTQ communities. Pick up your copy of Pretty Girl Complex: The Story of a Superheroine today to capture the opportunities and misconceptions of modern-day trends and to empower you to live a life of brilliance, unconventionally. “In our society, where the magnitude of external success and personal image often has a matching disconnect to the internal psyche, the author challenges us to see the complexity of every relationship as told through the eyes of characters that most people don’t write about.” – Allyn Reid, Co-founder of the entrepreneurial conference series, Secret Knock, Executive Producer of the feature film, Wishman, and the first Filipino woman to summit Mount Kilimanjaro.




Heroine Complex


Book Description

Asian-American superheroines Evie Tanaka and Aveda Jupiter protect San Francisco from perilous threats in the first book in Sarah Kuhn's snarky and smart fantasy trilogy • "The superheroine we’ve been waiting for." —Seanan McGuire Being a superheroine is hard. Working for one is even harder. Evie Tanaka is the put-upon personal assistant to Aveda Jupiter, her childhood best friend and San Francisco’s most beloved superheroine. She’s great at her job—blending into the background, handling her boss’s epic diva tantrums, and getting demon blood out of leather pants. Unfortunately, she’s not nearly as together when it comes to running her own life, standing up for herself, or raising her tempestuous teenage sister, Bea. But everything changes when Evie’s forced to pose as her glamorous boss for one night, and her darkest secret comes out: she has powers, too. Now it’s up to her to contend with murderous cupcakes, nosy gossip bloggers, and supernatural karaoke battles—all while juggling unexpected romance and Aveda’s increasingly outrageous demands. And when a larger threat emerges, Evie must finally take charge and become a superheroine in her own right...or see her city fall to a full-on demonic invasion.




YOU SCREWED UP!


Book Description

An inspirational book of startup stories; interviews of small business owners who share lessons from running their own businesses. The small business book for entrepreneurs who are searching for relevant tips to avoid major mistakes in running a business. A startup book to guide you on the right path for success, illuminating the efforts of entrepreneurs who view failing with positivity, a necessary component in making it. Business startup owners give true accounts of facing challenges with courage in an effort to highlight the startup journey from making tough decisions and the necessary sacrifices in order to save their businesses. Avoid in the pitfalls of running your own business by doing your own research and surrounding yourself with a trusted circle of individuals who can bail you out. A business startup book complete with lessons from entrepreneurs from all walks of life who choose to remain anonymous in order to give you the truest account of they got screwed. Running a startup can be stressful, and with big pain points to be learned, what gets so many entrepreneurs to take that risk? What are the lessons learned from failure? What was the offense and why did so many choose to never speak up? YOU SCREWED UP! TOP INTERVIEWS of Business Leaders & Lessons Learned From Their Failures and Success, an inspirational non-fiction, compiles interviews of entrepreneurs who share their story in anonymity. In some cases, the whistle was blown, and in others, information was omitted. By giving entrepreneurs a safe space to reflect, drawing upon the lessons, patterns began to emerge, such as delivering incomplete or lucid contracts, making risky investments, ignoring due diligence, and trusting the wrong investors. Pick up your copy of YOU SCREWED UP! to digest the lessons quickly and save yourself the headache of consequences of running a business that you could avoid! “Insightful and Inspirational” - Steve Rogers, Former Warren Buffet CEO




Super Adjacent


Book Description

In this fresh new take on the world of superheroes, explore what it's like to be the non-super half of a dynamic duo. Spoiler alert: it's not easy being super-adjacent. Claire has always wanted to work with superheroes, from collecting Warrior Nation cards as a kid to drafting "What to Say to a Hero" speeches in her diary. Now that she's landed a coveted internship with the Chicago branch of Warrior Nation, Claire is ready to prove she belongs, super or not. But complicating plans is the newest WarNat hero, Girl Power (aka Joy), who happens to be egotistical and self-important . . . and pretty adorable. Bridgette, meanwhile, wants out of WarNat. After years of dating the famous Vaporizer (aka Matt), she's sick of playing second, or third, or five-hundredth fiddle to all the people-in-peril in the city of Chicago. Of course, once Bridgette meets Claire—who's clearly in need of a mentor and wingman—giving up WarNat becomes slightly more complicated. It becomes a lot morecomplicated when Joy, Matt, and the rest of the heroes go missing, leaving only Claire and Bridgette to save the day. In this fresh and funny take on the world of supers, author Crystal Cestari spotlights what it's like to be the seemingly non-super half of a dynamic duo with banter-filled romance and bold rescues perfect for readers seeking a great escape.




Flora & Ulysses


Book Description

Rescuing a squirrel after an accident involving a vacuum cleaner, comic-reading cynic Flora Belle Buckman is astonished when the squirrel, Ulysses, demonstrates astonishing powers of strength and flight after being revived. By the Newbery Medal-winning author of The Tale of Despereaux.




Jessica Jones, Scarred Superhero


Book Description

Jessica Jones barged onto our screens in November 2015, courtesy of Marvel and Netflix, presenting a hard-drinking protagonist who wrestles with her own inner (and outer) demons. Gaining enhanced abilities as a teenager, she eschews the "super costume" and is far more concerned with the problems of daily life. But when Jessica falls under the control of a villain, her life changes forever. Based on the comic book Alias, the show won a large following and critical acclaim for its unflinching look at subjects like abuse, trauma, PTSD, rape culture, alcoholism, drug addiction, victims' plight and family conflicts. This collection of new essays offers insight into the show's complex themes and story lines.




Gender and the Superhero Narrative


Book Description

Contributions by Dorian L. Alexander, Janine Coleman, Gabriel Gianola, Mel Gibson, Michael Goodrum, Tim Hanley, Vanessa Hemovich, Christina Knopf, Christopher McGunnigle, Samira Nadkarni, Ryan North, Lisa Perdigao, Tara Prescott-Johnson, Philip Smith, and Maite Ucaregui The explosive popularity of San Diego’s Comic-Con, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Rogue One, and Netflix’s Jessica Jones and Luke Cage all signal the tidal change in superhero narratives and mainstreaming of what were once considered niche interests. Yet just as these areas have become more openly inclusive to an audience beyond heterosexual white men, there has also been an intense backlash, most famously in 2015’s Gamergate controversy, when the tension between feminist bloggers, misogynistic gamers, and internet journalists came to a head. The place for gender in superhero narratives now represents a sort of battleground, with important changes in the industry at stake. These seismic shifts—both in the creation of superhero media and in their critical and reader reception—need reassessment not only of the role of women in comics, but also of how American society conceives of masculinity. Gender and the Superhero Narrative launches ten essays that explore the point where social justice meets the Justice League. Ranging from comics such as Ms. Marvel, Batwoman: Elegy, and Bitch Planet to video games, Netflix, and cosplay, this volume builds a platform for important voices in comics research, engaging with controversy and community to provide deeper insight and thus inspire change.




Working-Class Comic Book Heroes


Book Description

Contributions by Phil Bevin, Blair Davis, Marc DiPaolo, Michele Fazio, James Gifford, Kelly Kanayama, Orion Ussner Kidder, Christina M. Knopf, Kevin Michael Scott, Andrew Alan Smith, and Terrence R. Wandtke In comic books, superhero stories often depict working-class characters who struggle to make ends meet, lead fulfilling lives, and remain faithful to themselves and their own personal code of ethics. Working-Class Comic Book Heroes: Class Conflict and Populist Politics in Comics examines working-class superheroes and other protagonists who populate heroic narratives in serialized comic books. Essayists analyze and deconstruct these figures, viewing their roles as fictional stand-ins for real-world blue-collar characters. Informed by new working-class studies, the book also discusses how often working-class writers and artists created these characters. Notably Jack Kirby, a working-class Jewish artist, created several of the most recognizable working-class superheroes, including Captain America and the Thing. Contributors weigh industry histories and marketing concerns as well as the fan community's changing attitudes towards class signifiers in superhero adventures. The often financially strapped Spider-Man proves to be a touchstone figure in many of these essays. Grant Morrison's Superman, Marvel's Shamrock, Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta, and The Walking Dead receive thoughtful treatment. While there have been many scholarly works concerned with issues of race and gender in comics, this book stands as the first to deal explicitly with issues of class, cultural capital, and economics as its main themes.




Superheroines and the Epic Journey


Book Description

The heroine's journey echoes throughout ancient legend. Each young woman combats her dark side and emerges stronger. This quest is also a staple of American comic books. Wonder Woman with semi-divine powers gives us a new female-centered creation story. Batgirl, Batwoman and Black Widow discover their enemy is the dark mother or shadow twin, with the savagery they've rejected in themselves. Supergirl similarly struggles but keeps harmony with her sister. From Jessica Jones and Catwoman to the new superwomen of cutting-edge webcomics, each heroine must go into the dark, to become not a warrior but a savior. Women like Captain Marvel and Storm sacrifice all to join the ranks of superheroes, while their feminine powers and dazzling costumes reflect the most ancient tales.




The American Superhero


Book Description

This compilation of essential information on 100 superheroes from comic book issues, various print and online references, and scholarly analyses provides readers all of the relevant material on superheroes in one place. The American Superhero: Encyclopedia of Caped Crusaders in History covers the history of superheroes and superheroines in America from approximately 1938–2010 in an intentionally inclusive manner. The book features a chronology of important dates in superhero history, five thematic essays covering the overall history of superheroes, and 100 A–Z entries on various superheroes. Complementing the entries are sidebars of important figures or events and a glossary of terms in superhero research. Designed for anyone beginning to research superheroes and superheroines, The American Superhero contains a wide variety of facts, figures, and features about caped crusaders and shows their importance in American history. Further, it collects and verifies information that otherwise would require hours of looking through multiple books and websites to find.