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A review by iam
Not Your Backup by C.B. Lee
3.0
Action-packed sequel that I wanted to rate 3.5 stars, but ultimately I was bothered by too many things to give more than 3 :(
Content warnings include: internalized aphobia, mild violence, human experiments; mentions of minor character death, abduction, blackmail.
Content warnings can be found at the end of the book (bit of a weird choice imo, but at least they are there.)
This was a great continuation of The Sidekick Squad series.
Emma was a great protagonist: she's ambitious, smart and determined and knows her worth, even if some people are hell bent on focusing on her lack of super powers and thus want to exclude her from the efforts of the Resistance, despite Emma being one of the most if not the main driving force beind the group, making plans and organising stuff. But despite being the Mastermind, Emma is also very much a Do-er. She wants to be at the front of the lines, and there's never a boring moment with her, both for her friends and for the reader.
Not Your Backup is extremely plot driven, to the point where everything else kind of became secondary. There wasn't much about Emma and Bells new relationship, and Emma questioning her (a-)sexuality and her being aromantic, while handled well, was an easily forgotten side thing. Due to the heavy focus on the action, the more character-focussed plots were so minor that I was almost thrown when they suddenly became relevant. Emma is so constantly sure of herself that when one person talking down on her became too much I was confused because it seemed like such a tiny, minor thing before.
Still, it was very much in character, as Emma does tie her seeking space in with their (read: her) plans.
One part of the very fast paced style is that the scenes are very short. Transitions? This book doesn't know that word. Time jumps were hard to follow and the short scenes frequently felt disconnected. It didn't help that at times describtions of who was doing what, where they were, or what was happening around them were completely lacking, which made some events hard to follow. It was as if entire sentences of descriptions were missing.
What bothered me most was how repeatedly predictable some parts of the plot were. And I'm not talking about following a good ol' formula and thus being able to see what's coming - I'm talking about thing that were so blindingly obvious I was genuinely confused and a bit shocked to see that the character didn't immediately know but had to painstakingly combine the already fitting pieces over the next few pages/chapters instead of coming to the natural conclusion when it happened. It felt almost forced.
Overall there was just an unpolished quality to the book, especially the last third of it. Ultimately it was still a very enjoyable read that flowed easily and was a pleasure to read. I particularly enjoyed the middle part.
Content warnings include: internalized aphobia, mild violence, human experiments; mentions of minor character death, abduction, blackmail.
Content warnings can be found at the end of the book (bit of a weird choice imo, but at least they are there.)
This was a great continuation of The Sidekick Squad series.
Emma was a great protagonist: she's ambitious, smart and determined and knows her worth, even if some people are hell bent on focusing on her lack of super powers and thus want to exclude her from the efforts of the Resistance, despite Emma being one of the most if not the main driving force beind the group, making plans and organising stuff. But despite being the Mastermind, Emma is also very much a Do-er. She wants to be at the front of the lines, and there's never a boring moment with her, both for her friends and for the reader.
Not Your Backup is extremely plot driven, to the point where everything else kind of became secondary. There wasn't much about Emma and Bells new relationship, and Emma questioning her (a-)sexuality and her being aromantic, while handled well, was an easily forgotten side thing. Due to the heavy focus on the action, the more character-focussed plots were so minor that I was almost thrown when they suddenly became relevant. Emma is so constantly sure of herself that when one person talking down on her became too much I was confused because it seemed like such a tiny, minor thing before.
Still, it was very much in character, as Emma does tie her seeking space in with their (read: her) plans.
One part of the very fast paced style is that the scenes are very short. Transitions? This book doesn't know that word. Time jumps were hard to follow and the short scenes frequently felt disconnected. It didn't help that at times describtions of who was doing what, where they were, or what was happening around them were completely lacking, which made some events hard to follow. It was as if entire sentences of descriptions were missing.
What bothered me most was how repeatedly predictable some parts of the plot were. And I'm not talking about following a good ol' formula and thus being able to see what's coming - I'm talking about thing that were so blindingly obvious I was genuinely confused and a bit shocked to see that the character didn't immediately know but had to painstakingly combine the already fitting pieces over the next few pages/chapters instead of coming to the natural conclusion when it happened. It felt almost forced.
Spoiler
like the stuff with the new meta-humans? they were literally just talking about the research, then suddenly new meta-humans show up, and they are all oh no where could they possibly be coming from?! Or when Emma is looking for Patricia in a very specific place, where she then meets a woman of the same age called Trish.... and doesn't immediately realize that this is Patricia, because, hello, common nicknames??????Overall there was just an unpolished quality to the book, especially the last third of it. Ultimately it was still a very enjoyable read that flowed easily and was a pleasure to read. I particularly enjoyed the middle part.