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vikv_art's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Really a fun book. Usually I am not interested in superheroes and villains, but this was really interesting. It's a dystopian in the 22th century after the world war tree and a big radiation explosion. It's own voices and it's just a fun read. The romance was adorable and I loved all the main characters and the side characters too. It's more of a character driven book and it's really predictable, but even if it's YA I think it's more for the younger readers, but still fun for older ones. I personally didn't mind how predictive the book was as I was just happy that I was right. The book is mostly light, but towards the end it starts to discuss more darker and serious topics. The only thing that irritated me (not that much but still would point out) is just after the characters escape the bad guys, there were romantic scenes instead of working on doing something. I understand it was probably because the characters were finally in a safe place but it felt like they we're calm for a little too much time. And in the end there was and explanation for why the characters would not be in danger continuing their normal lives that I feel like was placed there just for the sake of ending the book on a more peaceful note. But that didn't affect my rating. Can't wait to pick up the next books in the series.
Content Warnings
Minor: Kidnapping
booksthatburn's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
tense
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Not Your Sidekick is a fun and light-hearted dystopian superhero story which stays fairly upbeat even in a world that feels insidious and dips into horrific when viewed from the outside.
It slowly trickles in bits of information that paint the picture of how warped and controlling the world is. The MC doesn't know to question it (of course, at first how would she?), but the little drips of stuff that's off-kilter and probably toxic comes in slowly. The story stays in a very light tone even though some darker stuff is implied to be going on. Her journey to figure out what's happening and decide what she wants to do about it was really cool, and I'd definitely recommend this to readers in the middle-range of YA (14-15 probably as the sweet spot).
There's a couple of conversational moments that felt like they were designed to let someone know why pronouns are important. I'm really hyped that a book for teens has this in here because it's really important. As an adult reader who already knows about pronoun etiquette it just took me out of the moment a bit, but I know if I'd gotten to read this as a teen it might have been a step in figuring out some stuff a little sooner.
The action is great, the characters are endearing and awkward in their own ways and I loved reading this book. I'm very excited to check out the sequels, this laid a lot of groundwork in terms of worldbuilding and I'm interested to see how the author develops it further. The biggest points of anxiety for me as a reader all revolved around a certain character being chronically unable to pick up a hint when it was handed DIRECTLY to her, but it was really relatable (hence the anxiety).
It slowly trickles in bits of information that paint the picture of how warped and controlling the world is. The MC doesn't know to question it (of course, at first how would she?), but the little drips of stuff that's off-kilter and probably toxic comes in slowly. The story stays in a very light tone even though some darker stuff is implied to be going on. Her journey to figure out what's happening and decide what she wants to do about it was really cool, and I'd definitely recommend this to readers in the middle-range of YA (14-15 probably as the sweet spot).
There's a couple of conversational moments that felt like they were designed to let someone know why pronouns are important. I'm really hyped that a book for teens has this in here because it's really important. As an adult reader who already knows about pronoun etiquette it just took me out of the moment a bit, but I know if I'd gotten to read this as a teen it might have been a step in figuring out some stuff a little sooner.
The action is great, the characters are endearing and awkward in their own ways and I loved reading this book. I'm very excited to check out the sequels, this laid a lot of groundwork in terms of worldbuilding and I'm interested to see how the author develops it further. The biggest points of anxiety for me as a reader all revolved around a certain character being chronically unable to pick up a hint when it was handed DIRECTLY to her, but it was really relatable (hence the anxiety).
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Ableism, Kidnapping, and Racism
CW for ableist language (brief).
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