Review: The Extraordinaries

The Extraordinaries by T.J. Klune
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Nick Bell is just your average queer teenage boy, fancrushing on a superhero, the Extraordinary who goes by the moniker Shadow Star. Actually, to be honest, Nick can be kind of extra himself. He has ADHD and his mind flies and snarks unreservedly. He's written tons of fanfic about Shadow Star and is thrilled to meet him one day when he and his pal Gibby are almost mugged. Shadow Star saves them! Nick crushes on him even more, in spite of the fact that it's sort of weird that Shadowstar gave him an autograph with Nick's full name that he hadn't revealed to Shadow Star. Nick can't figure out why his best friend Seth seems less than thrilled, why Seth has been kind of distant and unavailable, plus why he seems so not taken with Shadow Star? Could Seth be jealous? Could he be secretly dating someone and not telling his lifelong best friend? And why is Gibby acting so weird? Neither Nick nor her girlfriend Jazz seem to know what's up with that. And Nick's ex-boyfriend Owen has been acting odd, too. Things only heat up from there as the two local Extraordinaries, Shadow Star and his archnemesis, Pyro Storm, start to kick their fighting up a notch. But when Nick's police officer father is seriously injured in one of their fights, Nick starts taking a harder look at Extraordinaries and the collateral damage that superpowers can result in— while they're exciting, are they really good for society at large? Having lost his mother in a bank robbery a few years earlier, Nick would do anything to keep his father safe.

This book is absolutely a riot, so full of zest and humor. Nick, all heart, snark, and humor, is a very entertaining character. (Poor Officer Rookie... what that man put up with!) Best of all, Klune paints a world in which gay and lesbian teens are represented as much loved by friends and family. One cannot say enough about how much that means to LGBTQ youth. I've grown to just love his writing and would highly recommend it to teens.

The audiobook, narrated with panache by Michael Lesley, was delightful. This genre (superhero fiction) isn't even my thing and yet I laughed loudly and grumbled whenever my listening was interrupted. Extraordinary!

I received a complimentary of the audiobook along with a paper Advance Reading Copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.

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