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A review by dame_samara
Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee
I wasn't sure how I'd like this book but have been craving more superhero fiction after binge "reading" (listening) to the Renegades Series.
I can't say I was disappointed by this book but I certainly wasn't wow-ed by it either. Their were no surprising twist or reveals. Which is ok, because it adds to the overall humor of the book. It really plays towards the ongoing joke of how can no one notice that Superman is Clark Kent it is just a pair of glasses. So instead of waiting on edge wanting to find out the identities of these people you are instead giggling and rolling your eyes as people fail to put two and two together.
I was also all for the awkward queer romance, It makes me so happy that YA Fiction now has this kind of representation. Also normalizing Trans people, I'm also always here for.
What I had not expected to pop, or not at least by that point in reading was race relations in this novel. When Captain Orion begins speaking poorly of Smasher and Shockwave due to their ethnicity and nationality, I became infuriated.
But also it made me more intrigued to learn about the systematic racism that is now most certainly is part of the Hero's League. I hope to see this further explored in the sequel because the whole system of the 'hero and villain' tracks seem inherently flawed and discriminatory.
Especially since at the end when we see Captain Orion and Mrs. Mischief discussing that the whole reason Mrs. Mischief is a Villain boils down to who she was in a relationship with. It made me uncomfortable, reminding me of a mixture of Eugenics and keeping the bloodline pure.
I can't say I was disappointed by this book but I certainly wasn't wow-ed by it either. Their were no surprising twist or reveals. Which is ok, because it adds to the overall humor of the book. It really plays towards the ongoing joke of how can no one notice that Superman is Clark Kent it is just a pair of glasses. So instead of waiting on edge wanting to find out the identities of these people you are instead giggling and rolling your eyes as people fail to put two and two together.
I was also all for the awkward queer romance, It makes me so happy that YA Fiction now has this kind of representation. Also normalizing Trans people, I'm also always here for.
But also it made me more intrigued to learn about the systematic racism that is now most certainly is part of the Hero's League. I hope to see this further explored in the sequel because the whole system of the 'hero and villain' tracks seem inherently flawed and discriminatory.
Especially since at the end when we see Captain Orion and Mrs. Mischief discussing that the whole reason Mrs. Mischief is a Villain boils down to who she was in a relationship with. It made me uncomfortable, reminding me of a mixture of Eugenics and keeping the bloodline pure.