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A review by julia_w
The Ables by Jeremy Scott
3.0
2.5 stars. It’s never good when you’re actively counting down the pages until the end of a book. Let’s start with what I liked. Obviously, I thought it was great to have disabled superheroes-it’s a cool concept. I liked that they all worked really hard to get used to their powers and their plans always went terribly. Nothing felt easy and there were real stakes. I also (mostly) liked the end confrontation, it was definitely the most into the book that I got.
Things I didn’t like (in no particular order):
1. The structure/ pacing of the book. The pacing is SO STRANGE. It cuts off at weird points in the action or right after the action and jumps forward random amounts of time, and then the narrator has to go back and describe it anyway. It’s so jarring, and it mostly seems like the author doesn’t know how or want to write any real emotional moments.
2. The lack of women/girls.
3. They way the disabilities were used with their powers. I thought we were going to get ways that their disabilities would actually enhance their powers-like, if you can’t use telekinesis well without sight, but you’re blind and used to doing it that way, then if all the lights go out, you’d have an inherent advantage, etc. That’s not what we got. It was more about giving sight back to the blind and such.
4. The way the author describes how a blind person would think. I just don’t think they’d think about facial expressions, or know what faces are beautiful the first time they could see, or describe things with colors when they couldn’t see. There were just several times I noticed things like this.
5. The villain. Yes, just what we want: a villain who knows he’s a bad guy. Not just a badguy, but a BAD guy. Like, what make villains interesting is that they think they’re good guys.
6. The world building. The town didn’t feel like a town and the people didn’t feel like people. The rest of the superhero world felt like cardboard bc it barely existed.
7. Several little plot things that were so ridiculous and stupid, including but not limited to: a) That fucking prophesy, man. Like, I could kind of buy it if it was predicting when someone was going to be born, but not this dumb thing. b) Some of these kids get placed in a special ed class for literally no reason? You cannot tell me that someone with asthma or in a wheelchair needs to be in special ed. I could’ve understood it if it was a separate class for learning how to used their powers in relation to their disabilities, but it’s just a whole separate class all day and no one can use their powers at school anyway.
Things I didn’t like (in no particular order):
1. The structure/ pacing of the book. The pacing is SO STRANGE. It cuts off at weird points in the action or right after the action and jumps forward random amounts of time, and then the narrator has to go back and describe it anyway. It’s so jarring, and it mostly seems like the author doesn’t know how or want to write any real emotional moments.
2. The lack of women/girls.
3. They way the disabilities were used with their powers. I thought we were going to get ways that their disabilities would actually enhance their powers-like, if you can’t use telekinesis well without sight, but you’re blind and used to doing it that way, then if all the lights go out, you’d have an inherent advantage, etc. That’s not what we got. It was more about giving sight back to the blind and such.
4. The way the author describes how a blind person would think. I just don’t think they’d think about facial expressions, or know what faces are beautiful the first time they could see, or describe things with colors when they couldn’t see. There were just several times I noticed things like this.
5. The villain. Yes, just what we want: a villain who knows he’s a bad guy. Not just a badguy, but a BAD guy. Like, what make villains interesting is that they think they’re good guys.
6. The world building. The town didn’t feel like a town and the people didn’t feel like people. The rest of the superhero world felt like cardboard bc it barely existed.
7. Several little plot things that were so ridiculous and stupid, including but not limited to: a) That fucking prophesy, man. Like, I could kind of buy it if it was predicting when someone was going to be born, but not this dumb thing. b) Some of these kids get placed in a special ed class for literally no reason? You cannot tell me that someone with asthma or in a wheelchair needs to be in special ed. I could’ve understood it if it was a separate class for learning how to used their powers in relation to their disabilities, but it’s just a whole separate class all day and no one can use their powers at school anyway.