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A review by tasharobinson
Seven Wonders by Adam Christopher
2.0
The latest in a growing wave of superhero novels starts off with a young man who's suddenly developing superpowers, to his delight, especially when it means he can join the fight against The Cowl, the horrific, murderous supervillain who's terrorized his city for years. But once he gets involved, he finds out the Seven Wonders, the superheroes who supposedly protect his city, aren't what they appear to be, and they've been consciously tolerating the status quo for years.
This sounds like a great plot, but this book doesn't carry it out past the setup. The prose is frustratingly focused on tiny details that are irrelevant to the story and the action that's going on — during a conversation between two people, the author will keep pausing over and over to note when one of them takes a sip of a drink or a bite of food, for instance — at the expense of the important details. All of the significant characters are incredibly inconsistent in their characterizations and motivations, with major plotlines petering out into nothing without explanation — for instance, one major character seeks revenge against another for the murder of her parents and taking life-changing steps for both of them as a result, but then neither of them ever actually addresses it again, and they even work together again without reaching any catharsis, confrontation, or conclusion. All the excess detail makes the book move irritatingly slowly for a novel full of action, and yet most of the action comes from abruptly, with little to no motivation, changing bad guys into good guys and vice versa, sometimes repeatedly. I could almost hear the author thinking "What a twist!" as he flip-flopped the sides yet again, but by that time, I didn't believe in any of these characters. There's a lot of excitement and energy and action going on in this book, but I wish it had stuck with developing the story it started with — or for that matter, any of the many subplots it laid out after abandoning that one.
This sounds like a great plot, but this book doesn't carry it out past the setup. The prose is frustratingly focused on tiny details that are irrelevant to the story and the action that's going on — during a conversation between two people, the author will keep pausing over and over to note when one of them takes a sip of a drink or a bite of food, for instance — at the expense of the important details. All of the significant characters are incredibly inconsistent in their characterizations and motivations, with major plotlines petering out into nothing without explanation — for instance, one major character seeks revenge against another for the murder of her parents and taking life-changing steps for both of them as a result, but then neither of them ever actually addresses it again, and they even work together again without reaching any catharsis, confrontation, or conclusion. All the excess detail makes the book move irritatingly slowly for a novel full of action, and yet most of the action comes from abruptly, with little to no motivation, changing bad guys into good guys and vice versa, sometimes repeatedly. I could almost hear the author thinking "What a twist!" as he flip-flopped the sides yet again, but by that time, I didn't believe in any of these characters. There's a lot of excitement and energy and action going on in this book, but I wish it had stuck with developing the story it started with — or for that matter, any of the many subplots it laid out after abandoning that one.