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Review: The Extraordinaries

TJ Klune’s YA hit showcases a love for everything bright and ridiculous. All at once hysterically ridiculous and brutally heartfelt, The Extraordinaries is an homage to the naturally campy (and queer) nature of superheroes.

Nick Bell? Not extraordinary. But being the most popular fanfiction writer in the Extraordinaries fandom is a superpower, right? After a chance encounter with Shadow Star, Nova City’s mightiest hero (and Nick’s biggest crush), Nick sets out to make himself extraordinary. And he’ll do it with or without the reluctant help of Seth Gray, Nick's best friend (and maybe the love of his life).

I’d best explain this book as Marissa Meyer’s Renegades meets “You Belong With Me” by Taylor Swift, but with all the iconic hilarity and nostalgia of Peter David’s 1998 run of Young Justice. From over-the-top suits to flashy fights to terrible hero names, this book should feel familiar to anyone whose ever been a fan of superheroes. The train of thought narration style takes some getting used to, even for a fellow ADHD person, but once I fell into the rhythm, I found Nick to be endearing, hilarious, and painfully honest. For someone who’s oblivious to a lot, he truly does see and understand many things, most of which hurt him more than he’ll outwardly let on. His position in fandom is also interesting, playing into how he both wants to distance himself from his real-world issues and redesign himself how he really wants to be.

Nick’s relationship with Seth is heartwarming, a true puppy love, and his relationship with his father adds a wonderful undertone to the entire book. Seth is just adorable, though his crush was honestly painful to watch at times, and Gibby and Jazz reminded me so much of my friends from high school. The way everyone just ribs at each other was extremely accurate. I found Owen’s character likable and intriguing at first, but I felt he was a little underdeveloped near the end. Maybe it’s because Nick doesn’t really know what’s going on with him until the end, but his devolution was too sudden for me. 

I wanted to see more of the superpowers and sci-fi elements behind the superhero trope—even if it’s Hollywood science—but the book focuses more on its contemporary setting elements in the first installment, so it’s to be expected we won’t see many explanations on the limits and drawbacks to the characters powers. I hope to see this in the following books—magic/power systems are uninteresting when there aren’t any parameters given. 

I did struggle to find sympathy for the cops in the story, and while I understood and felt empathy for Nick’s father as a person, his position as a cop and his actions (having previously been violent towards a witness and only facing a demotion) had their implications glossed over in a way that didn’t sit right with me. Klune has since made a statement on this, to be found on his website (and linked in various other reviews on Goodreads), and I’m interested to see how he’s addressed this in the sequels.

TJ KLUNE is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of The House in the Cerulean Sea, The Extraordinaries, and more. Being queer himself, Klune believes it's important—now more than ever—to have accurate, positive queer representation in stories.

You can find more on Klune at his website, https://www.tjklunebooks.com/.

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