Velveteen vs. The Early Adventures

 Velveteen vs. The Early Adventures by Seanan McGuire, 629 pages.

Velma Martinez, better known as Velveteen, managed to get free of Super Patriots, Inc (who have a controlling interest in 97% of superheroes) on her 18th birthday. Ever since she's been trying to lay low and live a normal human life, but Super Patriots, Inc doesn't like to let go of it's toys, especially the extremely marketable toy-animating Velveteen. She soon finds herself pulled back into superhero problems, and if the Super Patriots won't leave her alone she's going to have to make them, even if it takes the manifested powers of the seasons and multiversal variants to do it. 

This book collects the first two volumes of Velveteen short stories, which McGuire started writing in 2008. The worldbuilding in this setting is interesting, which gives superheroes many of the most toxic elements of corporate culture. Although technically a short story collection, most of the stories fit together so neatly that this book feels more like a serially published novel than a collection, but that's not something I would object to. I found Vel to be a compelling character, and thought that the rules of the setting were surprisingly consistent for a superhero setting. I would definitely recommend this for someone looking for a thoughtful superhero setting.