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A review by mschlat
The Ables by Jeremy Scott
2.0
I picked up this book (and actually preordered it) because the author is one of the founders of Cinema Sins --- one of my favorite YouTube channels and an excellent provider of genre-focused snark. I also liked the high concept; we follow a group of disabled middle school students who also have superpowers. Unfortunately, their disabilities sometimes hamper their ability to be super, as in the case of our protagonist Phillip, who is a blind telekinetic.
There's a lot of cleverness involved with the superpowers, especially because one of the middle school students (Bentley) is a super genius. Bentley has a number of great insights throughout the book on how our heroes can use their powers more effectively.
Sadly, I found the cleverness was outweighed by the clunkiness of the writing. Scott uses a lot of dialogue to deliver exposition to the reader, and I disliked the emphasis on discussion over action, especially in the first half of the novel. In addition, many of the plot points appeared to be straw men --- the obstacles appeared only to be knocked down, not because of any other logic inherent in the story.
The biggest example I saw of this was early in the novel when we discover that all of our disabled heroes are in a special education class apart from the rest of the school. Please note that there is nothing that would prevent most of these students, if not all, from being placed in regular education classrooms with a few accommodations. In our world, given the current trends in education, that's exactly what would happen, especially since almost all of the students have no learning differences. But in the world of the Ables, we get a 1950's approach to special education, primarily (I'm assuming) to drive conflict.
There are a number of notes like this in the book --- conflicts or problems that appear with little rhyme or reason. Near the end of the novel, a betrayal in the past becomes very important. Unfortunately for the reader, we never get a clear idea of why the betrayal occurred, just that we need to know about it.
There's some good stuff here, especially in the interactions between the kids. I just wish the plotting was strong enough to support the characters.
There's a lot of cleverness involved with the superpowers, especially because one of the middle school students (Bentley) is a super genius. Bentley has a number of great insights throughout the book on how our heroes can use their powers more effectively.
Sadly, I found the cleverness was outweighed by the clunkiness of the writing. Scott uses a lot of dialogue to deliver exposition to the reader, and I disliked the emphasis on discussion over action, especially in the first half of the novel. In addition, many of the plot points appeared to be straw men --- the obstacles appeared only to be knocked down, not because of any other logic inherent in the story.
The biggest example I saw of this was early in the novel when we discover that all of our disabled heroes are in a special education class apart from the rest of the school. Please note that there is nothing that would prevent most of these students, if not all, from being placed in regular education classrooms with a few accommodations. In our world, given the current trends in education, that's exactly what would happen, especially since almost all of the students have no learning differences. But in the world of the Ables, we get a 1950's approach to special education, primarily (I'm assuming) to drive conflict.
There are a number of notes like this in the book --- conflicts or problems that appear with little rhyme or reason. Near the end of the novel, a betrayal in the past becomes very important. Unfortunately for the reader, we never get a clear idea of why the betrayal occurred, just that we need to know about it.
There's some good stuff here, especially in the interactions between the kids. I just wish the plotting was strong enough to support the characters.