The Disability Book Archive

[ID: A book cover. The title “Hench” is written in large blue capitals with a red outline at the bottom of the cover. Below it, “A Novel” in small, faint red cursive. Above the title, the author’s name “Natalie Zina Walschots” in smaller yellow capitals. In the upper left corner, a quote by New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire, that reads “Fast, furious, compelling, and angry as hell.” in smaller white writing. The background is dark red and shows the shadow of a young woman standing in the centre, above the title. Behind her, cast on an even dark red background, her shadow, made to look like it is wearing a cape. /end]

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Content Warning:

• Injury
• Medical Experimentation
• Body Horror
• Murder
• Torture
• Kidnap
• Violence
• Gore

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Summary:

Anna does boring things for terrible people because even criminals need office help and she needs a job. Working for a monster lurking beneath the surface of the world isn’t glamorous. But is it really worse than working for an oil conglomerate or an insurance company? In this economy?

 As a temp, she’s just a cog in the machine. But when she finally gets a promising assignment, everything goes very wrong, and an encounter with the so-called “hero” leaves her badly injured.  And, to her horror, compared to the other bodies strewn about, she’s the lucky one.

So, of course, then she gets laid off.

With no money and no mobility, with only her anger and internet research acumen, she discovers her suffering at the hands of a hero is far from unique. When people start listening to the story that her data tells, she realizes she might not be as powerless as she thinks.

Because the key to everything is data: knowing how to collate it, how to manipulate it, and how to weaponize it. By tallying up the human cost these caped forces of nature wreak upon the world, she discovers that the line between good and evil is mostly marketing.  And with social media and viral videos, she can control that appearance.

It’s not too long before she’s employed once more, this time by one of the worst villains on earth. As she becomes an increasingly valuable lieutenant, she might just save the world.

A sharp, witty, modern debut, Hench explores the individual cost of justice through a fascinating mix of Millennial office politics, heroism measured through data science, body horror, and a profound misunderstanding of quantum mechanics. 

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Notes:

This is the first book in the Hench series.

There is an audiobook.

There is an ebook/Kindle edition.

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Archivist Comments:

I love the idea of super admin. It’s giving Kim Possible vibes…if Kim Possible had a villian origin story.

I’ve seen a couple of references to the MC also potentially having a TBI (traumatic brain injury) but I haven’t found anything concrete yet. If I do I’ll update this.

Apparently this book gets incredibly gory at the end.

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