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thatonebookgirl 's review for:
The Ables
by Jeremy Scott
I remember hearing about The Ables in a passing reference on a vlog, but hearing the description alone got me hooked. Disabled superheroes? An ancient prophecy? Superpowers!? As someone who loves both superheroes (Just ask Marissa Meyer!) and disabled representation, I quickly added it to my Barnes and Noble Cart. It finally arrived few days ago, and with my cup of coffee and a curated playlist, I quickly started to read.
Phillip Salinger, expecting to begin superhero school to develop his telekinetic powers, finds himself unpleasantly surprised when he is placed in a Special Ed class for disabled powered kids. Feeling like an outsider and bullied by his other schoolmates, Phillip bonds with the other kids in his class and works to establish themselves as superheroes deserving of equal treatment. With a new threat on the rise, Phillip and his friends find themselves caught in an twisted plan and an old prophecy by a sinister villain.
I decided to rate this book 3 stars. While this book was an incredible action-packed adventure, there were some parts where the plot thinned or didn't make sense. There also were some things I wish the author would have either elaborated on or focused on more than others.
Another big thing that contributed to the review was some of the representation and handling of disabilities throughout the book and how it affected the narrative. I don't know what it is like to be blind and I won't act like I do, but I have read extensively about writing disabilities as both a writer and someone who has a chronic condition that impacts my life. I'll be providing some links for you to peruse and look over!
Now, onto the review! (Slight spoilers ahead to around a third in)
What I Loved
If you like action this is a, hundred percent, the book for you. I love some good action sequences and tense scenes, and this book delivered every scene with a bang. It was like reading the equivalent of a Mission Impossible Movie. It was at a nice pace in the beginning, but right around the halfway point it dials everything to a hundred and races toward the end. It was an incredible heart-pounding adventure, I could not put it down. No wonder why I was up until 2 AM finishing it!!
One thing that really stood out to me was the lack of visuals. Phillip Salinger, the narrator, is blind. Thus, we don't have a lot of visuals in the first half of the narrative unless they are described by other characters or by Phillip's other senses. I thought it was such a creative and fascinating way to tell a story while also reflecting Phillip's blindness. I've never read a book that told a story like that and I totally loved it. I honestly wish he continued it for the rest of the book (More on that later).
I LOVED the characters. They all leapt off the page and straight into my heart. From the grumpy and cynical Henry, to the shy intellectual Bentley, and the novice entrepreneur James, ahhh!!!!! They all had their own voices and motivations and bonds, I adored them and I want to adopt them all. I was so happy to see that the main character Phillip didn't fall into the bland main character trope. I rarely ever see a healer, voice of reason main character. Hearing him try and corall his friends while they all do reckless things was very priceless. He was very sweet and adorable, and I...wanted to protect him.
The friendship was the absolute best. I'm a sucker for found family/friendship tropes so this book served my favorite things to me and I'm so happy. The book does a great job of establishing the bonds between the characters. The bonding scenes and sleepovers made me laugh so hard. I was so engaged in all the character's friendships. If you like adorable and healthy male friendships, this book delivers it on a silver platter!
In most books, there is little to none when it comes to disabled representation. So having an entire book's main characters ALL have disabilities? It was very refreshing to read about. And the disabilities were diverse as well, ranging from a boy with ataxic cerebral palsy and a penchant for tinkering and a blind teleporter who runs his own business. The characters all had their own passions and interests along with being disabled, which is something most books with disabled characters fail to do. They were people with disabilities, with passions and friendships and lives. And superpowers.
What I Disliked
I wish he would have emphasized the superhero school aspect!! Like, whoa, a superhero school? How does it work, what classes does Phillip take, are they different from what the other kids learn because he’s in a Special Ed class? But the only reference to the school at all was a Q/A they had in the beginning of the story and this training competition called the SuperSim. Otherwise, nothing about the school or what they did. I was a bit disappointed, I was looking forward to more information about the school and how they operated and taught classes!
This book falls into a weird category of both doing a really good job at portraying those with disabilities to falling really, really short of accuracy and portrayal. Let's break it down, shall we?
Such as the case of Phillip and his ability to 'see'. Around a third in the book, Phillip and his friends find a way to project images to Phillip's mind so that he can see. They manage to develop it so Phillip is basically able to 'see' without using his eyes.
This...was basically the magical cure trope. To sum it up, the 'Magical Cure' trope happens where a disabled character finds a way to cure their disability so they are basically able-bodied. It felt cheap to show a blind main character who worked to be included and fought to use his powers only to turn around and basically cure him. I mean, Daredevil doesn't have magic mental pictures to help him?
I think they're could have been a myriad of better ways to show Phillip being a superhero without needing to have sight. And that opens up a whole other Pandora's box of issues. Phillip was only able to be a hero when he could 'see'? Yeah, that's giving me some yucky vibes.
It was a easy way to advance the narrative. Instead of finding a creative way for Phillip to use his powers while he's blind, he instead decided that Phillip had to see to fight crime, even thought that isn't true at all. I mean, look at David Black, Lee Hoy, Johnny Tai, and the other countless blind martial artists. There's even an entire foundation dedicated to Blind martial arts! And, giving him this 'sight' also affected the way the rest of the story was told and allowed Scott to basically portray Phillip as an able-bodied character who was blind...sometimes?
Another one was the treatment of Freddie. Oh, Freddie. He was described as having chronic asthma. When I first read about him, I was really excited as I have chronic asthma and have never even read a book with a character who had the same condition as me. But then...every scene he was described as using his inhaler, or refilling his inhaler, or getting his inhaler, you get the drift?
Jeremy Scott does not know how asthma, or chronic asthma, works. For one thing, if Freddie is using a rescue inhaler every five minutes, something is very very wrong and he needs to go to the hospital. And secondly, to make Freddie's character basically 'Asthmatic kid' made me upset. Especially when you have him in the same book with other disabled characters who all had their own interests and personality. Freddie didn't have any characterization or personality other than 'He had asthma! He's using an inhaler!" I'm still bitter about that.
Consensus
So, what did I think about this book? I think it was a great action book and an interesting take on the superhero genre. This was a good attempt, and in some parts Scott really hit the nail on the head for writing disabled characters accurately, but sometimes he just fell short. The double-handed portrayal of disabilities and the cheap use of the ‘Magical’ cure trope ruined my enjoyment of the book. If they had characterized Freddie and fixed the narrative without relying on the whole, ‘He has to see!!!” standard, I would have easily rated this 4, maybe even 5 stars.
Will I read the next books? Yes, I will. I really like the characters and he left me on a cliffhanger so I do want to continue. Maybe with the next coming books he may have changed his approach to some of his writing. So, here’s to hoping!
- That Book Girl
Check out my blog or my instagram!
Phillip Salinger, expecting to begin superhero school to develop his telekinetic powers, finds himself unpleasantly surprised when he is placed in a Special Ed class for disabled powered kids. Feeling like an outsider and bullied by his other schoolmates, Phillip bonds with the other kids in his class and works to establish themselves as superheroes deserving of equal treatment. With a new threat on the rise, Phillip and his friends find themselves caught in an twisted plan and an old prophecy by a sinister villain.
I decided to rate this book 3 stars. While this book was an incredible action-packed adventure, there were some parts where the plot thinned or didn't make sense. There also were some things I wish the author would have either elaborated on or focused on more than others.
Another big thing that contributed to the review was some of the representation and handling of disabilities throughout the book and how it affected the narrative. I don't know what it is like to be blind and I won't act like I do, but I have read extensively about writing disabilities as both a writer and someone who has a chronic condition that impacts my life. I'll be providing some links for you to peruse and look over!
Now, onto the review! (Slight spoilers ahead to around a third in)
What I Loved
If you like action this is a, hundred percent, the book for you. I love some good action sequences and tense scenes, and this book delivered every scene with a bang. It was like reading the equivalent of a Mission Impossible Movie. It was at a nice pace in the beginning, but right around the halfway point it dials everything to a hundred and races toward the end. It was an incredible heart-pounding adventure, I could not put it down. No wonder why I was up until 2 AM finishing it!!
One thing that really stood out to me was the lack of visuals. Phillip Salinger, the narrator, is blind. Thus, we don't have a lot of visuals in the first half of the narrative unless they are described by other characters or by Phillip's other senses. I thought it was such a creative and fascinating way to tell a story while also reflecting Phillip's blindness. I've never read a book that told a story like that and I totally loved it. I honestly wish he continued it for the rest of the book (More on that later).
I LOVED the characters. They all leapt off the page and straight into my heart. From the grumpy and cynical Henry, to the shy intellectual Bentley, and the novice entrepreneur James, ahhh!!!!! They all had their own voices and motivations and bonds, I adored them and I want to adopt them all. I was so happy to see that the main character Phillip didn't fall into the bland main character trope. I rarely ever see a healer, voice of reason main character. Hearing him try and corall his friends while they all do reckless things was very priceless. He was very sweet and adorable, and I...wanted to protect him.
The friendship was the absolute best. I'm a sucker for found family/friendship tropes so this book served my favorite things to me and I'm so happy. The book does a great job of establishing the bonds between the characters. The bonding scenes and sleepovers made me laugh so hard. I was so engaged in all the character's friendships. If you like adorable and healthy male friendships, this book delivers it on a silver platter!
In most books, there is little to none when it comes to disabled representation. So having an entire book's main characters ALL have disabilities? It was very refreshing to read about. And the disabilities were diverse as well, ranging from a boy with ataxic cerebral palsy and a penchant for tinkering and a blind teleporter who runs his own business. The characters all had their own passions and interests along with being disabled, which is something most books with disabled characters fail to do. They were people with disabilities, with passions and friendships and lives. And superpowers.
What I Disliked
I wish he would have emphasized the superhero school aspect!! Like, whoa, a superhero school? How does it work, what classes does Phillip take, are they different from what the other kids learn because he’s in a Special Ed class? But the only reference to the school at all was a Q/A they had in the beginning of the story and this training competition called the SuperSim. Otherwise, nothing about the school or what they did. I was a bit disappointed, I was looking forward to more information about the school and how they operated and taught classes!
This book falls into a weird category of both doing a really good job at portraying those with disabilities to falling really, really short of accuracy and portrayal. Let's break it down, shall we?
Such as the case of Phillip and his ability to 'see'. Around a third in the book, Phillip and his friends find a way to project images to Phillip's mind so that he can see. They manage to develop it so Phillip is basically able to 'see' without using his eyes.
This...was basically the magical cure trope. To sum it up, the 'Magical Cure' trope happens where a disabled character finds a way to cure their disability so they are basically able-bodied. It felt cheap to show a blind main character who worked to be included and fought to use his powers only to turn around and basically cure him. I mean, Daredevil doesn't have magic mental pictures to help him?
I think they're could have been a myriad of better ways to show Phillip being a superhero without needing to have sight. And that opens up a whole other Pandora's box of issues. Phillip was only able to be a hero when he could 'see'? Yeah, that's giving me some yucky vibes.
It was a easy way to advance the narrative. Instead of finding a creative way for Phillip to use his powers while he's blind, he instead decided that Phillip had to see to fight crime, even thought that isn't true at all. I mean, look at David Black, Lee Hoy, Johnny Tai, and the other countless blind martial artists. There's even an entire foundation dedicated to Blind martial arts! And, giving him this 'sight' also affected the way the rest of the story was told and allowed Scott to basically portray Phillip as an able-bodied character who was blind...sometimes?
Another one was the treatment of Freddie. Oh, Freddie. He was described as having chronic asthma. When I first read about him, I was really excited as I have chronic asthma and have never even read a book with a character who had the same condition as me. But then...every scene he was described as using his inhaler, or refilling his inhaler, or getting his inhaler, you get the drift?
Jeremy Scott does not know how asthma, or chronic asthma, works. For one thing, if Freddie is using a rescue inhaler every five minutes, something is very very wrong and he needs to go to the hospital. And secondly, to make Freddie's character basically 'Asthmatic kid' made me upset. Especially when you have him in the same book with other disabled characters who all had their own interests and personality. Freddie didn't have any characterization or personality other than 'He had asthma! He's using an inhaler!" I'm still bitter about that.
Consensus
So, what did I think about this book? I think it was a great action book and an interesting take on the superhero genre. This was a good attempt, and in some parts Scott really hit the nail on the head for writing disabled characters accurately, but sometimes he just fell short. The double-handed portrayal of disabilities and the cheap use of the ‘Magical’ cure trope ruined my enjoyment of the book. If they had characterized Freddie and fixed the narrative without relying on the whole, ‘He has to see!!!” standard, I would have easily rated this 4, maybe even 5 stars.
Will I read the next books? Yes, I will. I really like the characters and he left me on a cliffhanger so I do want to continue. Maybe with the next coming books he may have changed his approach to some of his writing. So, here’s to hoping!
- That Book Girl
Check out my blog or my instagram!