(no subject)

[skygiants]

I really wanted to like Perry Moore's Hero. Gay superpowered teen and assorted also-superpowered misfits form superhero group, thumb nose at thinly-veiled versions of major comic superheroes, save world! What is not to like? And the book is certainly trying to do a lot of admirable things, and it's very earnest!

Which . . . may be part of the problem. Most of the middle of the book goes like this:

THOM, GAY TEEN SUPERHERO: Dang, my life sucks. I have to hide my sexuality AND my superpowered status from my universally-reviled ex-superhero dad who Just Doesn't Understand Me. Also, my mom walked out! And I was kicked off the basketball team. LIFE IS TERRIBLE.
OTHER SUPERHERO TEAM MEMBER: Yes, but my life is worse. Let me explain how!
THOM, GAY TEEN SUPERHERO: Gosh, after learning about your angsty backstory involving racism/dead parents/growing up in an orphanage/tragic cancer, I realize that your life IS actually worse than mine! I feel just rotten for misjudging you!
OTHER SUPERHERO TEAM MEMBER: Thank you for that bonding experience.

THOM, GAY TEEN SUPERHERO: And yet, my life still sucks.
OTHER SUPERHERO TEAM MEMBER: Yes, but my life is worse . . .

[rinse and repeat]

It's all very well-meaning, but there is only so much Tragic Backstory One-Upsmanship I can take - not to mention that it sort of reduces every character to Their Issues, which, awesome. Then you add to this to the fact that Thom hit my embarrassment squick just about every time he opened his mouth - seriously, this kid balances the unfortunate combination of super judginess and zero social skills, and when I can tell your social skills are terrible SOMETHING IS WRONG. Examples:

THOM: I would like to make friends with this older-lady teammate of mine! How should I begin a conversation with her?
OLDER TEAMMATE: *lights up a cigarette*
THOM: You know, smoking will kill you. *JUDGYFACE*
BECCA: Yeah, that's a way to make friends.

THOM: I would like to impress the Superhero Board!
SUPERHERO BOARD: *chatting cheerfully with a fellow-candidate who has gotten off to A Bad Start with Thom, and apparently getting along well with her*
THOM: Hey, Superhero Board. So that girl, she's kind of a freak, amirite, hahahaha!
SUPERHERO BOARD: . . . . . that is not the way to impress us, Thom.
BECCA: It is not way to impress me either. >:|

THOM: I would like to make friends with this immigrant student!
THOM: WOULD ---- YOU ----- LIKE ----- TO ------ READ ------ SOME ----- DOCTOR ------ SEUSS? ISN'T ------- READING -------- FUN ????
BECCA: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

And then you add to this a few logic fails throughout that I found it difficult to get around, even for a superhero story (I don't care how great your healing powers are, Thom, you can't detect mental illness IN A HOLOGRAM! Holograms AREN'T REAL!) and in the end, while I'm glad that this book exists - and hope it paves the way for more LGBT superhero stories to come! - as a book, it really just frustrated me more than anything else.

(I should probably add for fairness' sake, though, that I was reading an uncorrected proof I picked up in a bookstore sale, so some things may have been different in the final published version!)

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed the book more than you did, but recall an even bigger logic fail:

"I must sacrifice myself to destroy the Kryptonite bomb rather than destroying it from a safe distance for... no particular reason!"

And also, the guy whose murder set off all sorts of plot points was, I recall, killed for no particular reason.

Also, the entire last third of the book made no sense whatsoever.

[skygiants]

Hahaha, I suspect I was so irritated by the relatively minor logic fails in the beginning that by the time we'd reached that final third of the book I had just sort of given up on the plot making sense. "Percy's powers have a limit, except now they don't! OKAY." "A bunch of people are being killed for no reason! WHY NOT." "There's a ton of superheroes being mentally controlled, and we could fix that really easily and grow our own numbers by removing their mental control rings, but as a plan that would just be TOO EASY. Time for a final stand! \o/"

[themadpoker.livejournal.com]

I read that book! Only I don't remember anything about it except whoever recommended me liked the romance and I felt pretty meh about it. Though I'd probably still be interested in a sequel, I love superhero stories.

[skygiants]

I think I would have liked the romance if the love interest had been developed more beyond "noble Model Immigrant with a Tragic Backstory" . . . or if I had found it plausible that he would have forgiven Thom for Thom's multiple instances of COMPLETE FAIL in the first half of the novel . . . or if we had seen any actual conversational development other than lots of basketball games and stalking. But, uh, it had the potential to be cute!

I think I am also a little burned-out on superhero stories currently, which could have something to do with it.