Review: The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind

Isn’t that just the best title ever? Between that and the quirky cover, you know you’re in for an unusual ride!

Book: The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind by Jackson Ford

Read before: No

Ownership: Review copy sent free of charge by Orbit Books. All opinions my own.

Ahh, this book was just so much fun. From the very beginning, you feel like you’re watching a very slick TV series, filled with action and humour and really excellent CGI. This would be amazing to watch, but it’s even better as a book, because you get the brilliant narrative voice of Teagan Frost, the titular Girl Who Could Move Shit With Her Mind. Teagan’s a modern, sarcastic, genre-savvy narrator who is pretty fed up of all this superpowered nonsense – imagine one of the X-men who sighs every time they have to go on a mission (oh wait, that’s Wolverine. Never mind.). She’s a ton of fun to read about and she kind of drags you along with her as everything goes to pieces. She’s suspected of a high-profile murder that only someone with her ability could commit – and she’s the only person in the world with that ability. Or is she?

Since Teagan only has 24 hours to prove she didn’t commit the murder, and proving that necessitates a huge change to everything she thought was true, the story absolutely rollicks along. It’s high-octane and flashy, but there is space for there to be a proper plot – no gimmicky action for the sake of action here. Teagan’s part of a team of secret agents who work on the weird kind of missions that might require someone who can Move Shit With Their Mind, and they are all pretty complicated, which leads to some great tensions and plot twists. The villain of the piece is pretty disturbing, and some chapters from his perspective are peppered in, which also serves to make this feel filmic in scope, since it cuts away from Teagan’s perspective to up the ante. To tell you any more about the plot would spoil it, as there’s so many twists you really just have to experience it…

I’ve seen this book described as ‘rock and roll’ and I think that’s pretty accurate. It walks the line of being over the top, and I definitely think there will be those who critique it for being too silly. But look, I’m not saying it’s full of literary merit. It’s just astonishingly good fun, and the perfect kind of escapism, especially if you wish Batman had more of a sense of humour. Four out of five cats!