Reviews with content warning for Medical content - The Extraordinaries

Oh my god this book was so frustrating. First, the pro-police stance is gross. Nick’s dad should have been fired, not just demoted and then PROMOTED AT THE END OF THE BOOK. Beyond the constant police dick-sucking going on, the relationships sucked. Every. single. one. Between Nick and his dad? Toxic. Nick and Seth? Seth deserved better. Owen and Nick? What the fuck even was that? Gibby and Jazz? They’re fine I guess but we didn’t see them much. Jazz was my favorite character in this whole book because she minded her own freaking business. Also, can we talk about how actually STUPID Nick is? Dumb. A dumb man. Just because you’re aware that you’re a dumb teenage boy doesn’t make it okay. It is so infuriating to read. Oh my god. Jazz is the only reason this got any stars from me. I am mainly mad at myself because I know I’m going to read the whole trilogy even though they are probably all going to suck like this. Oh well.

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caidyn's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This book was out of my wheelhouse. I'm not into superheroes and this is a very cutesy book. Are those bad things? Nope. But it's not entirely my thing. I absolutely adored how Klune wove the story. It felt like a YA book with actual teen characters. And the fanfiction? Amazing. It read in that cringey way that fanfiction can. I can't wait to see what the next book brings!

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alibader's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I really, really wanted to enjoy this especially after reading The House in the Cerulean Sea. This book infuriated me almost all the way through.

What I enjoyed: (a short list)
1. Nick's cluelessness (until about the halfway point)
2. The romance (so cute!)
3. The overall premise (I wish I could say the same for the execution)
4. The ending.

What I did not enjoy:
1. The insensitivity towards police brutality and the character of Aaron Bell.
2. The camp - it took away from the story that could've been told and made it look like a bad parody.
3. The dialogue (teenagers do not talk like that)
4.

The constant lying. It didn't make much sense when it was finally revealed and it took too long for Nick to find out the obvious that it really hindered my enjoyment. Also when he found out that Seth, Gibby and practically everyone he knows lied to him it's just.... his fault? And it's all okay?

5. The reveals (I'd like to think that these were intentionally obvious but that didn't make it any more fun - also it was super anti-climatic). The ending wrapped up way too quickly too.
6. The "comedy". One of my biggest gripes with this book was that serious moments didn't make that much of an effect and instead served as "comedic relief" - it wasn't funny.

This is my longest review yet but I truly did want to enjoy this queer superhero series but I was so disappointed. I may give the sequel a try in the future.

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wardenred's review against another edition

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emotional funny inspiring fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

You’re a goddamn Extraordinary. Do you know what that makes me? That makes me the clueless comedic relief! I never wanted to be the clueless comedic relief. I’m supposed to be the hero!

This was a really fun and relatable read. I mean, sometimes I had to look away from the page because of a certain nearly unbearable degree of secondhand embarrassment for the MC... but that's because I've pretty much recognized myself in some moments. The kind of moments that my brain loves to play on repeat at 2 AM when I'm trying to sleep. Anyway, given that Nicky gets to save the day and have a happy ending and be generally surrounded by people who love him for who he is, even the secondhand embarrassment was surprisingly cathartic. :)

I'm not sure if it's me being genre-savvy or if the plot twists were intentionally written to be as transparent as possible. They were certainly extremely transparent for me, and that's where a lot of the fun from this book came from: I generally knew what was going to happen long before the MC did, but I had no idea how it was going to happen and what was needed to make the MC aware that it's been happening all alone. It's a quality I'm used to finding (and absolutely loving) in fanfic more often than in published books. It was awesome to see it here. Also, fitting, since the MC is a fic writer. (Although I do hope that "best writer in the fandom" is Nicky's own assessment of his talents and not a hard fact. I mean, it's an awesome assessment of one's talents to have! More power to Nicky! It's just that after spending close to 20 years reading fanfic, I know it can be better, okay?)

There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments here, a lot of raw feeling, and the cutest friends-to-lovers slow, slow burn ever. Also, I'm so here for this awesome all-queer cast and all the found family goodness. One thing I can always trust T.J. Klune with: to write a perfect pick-me-up story. I absolutely can't wait to read the sequel!

One thing that did make me lower the number of stars just a tiny bit was the presence of what I can only call copaganda. The MC's dad is an awesome character. So is Officer Rookie. I wouldn't want them to be absent from the story in any way. But I could use a bit less of a general "cops are the true heroes and they could have been doing their jobs even better if the Extraordinaries quit messing around the city" feel. It reads weird in today's landscape, and I'm not even American.

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