ARC Review: The Extraordinaries by T.J. Klune.

*ARC courtesy of Netgalley*

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Publication Date: July 14th 2020

In Nova City, there are people capable of feats that defy the imagination. They’re called Extraordinaries.

There is Shadow Star: a protector who can manipulate darkness in his quest to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

His arch-nemesis is Pyro Storm: an Extraordinary capable of controlling fire who is bent on bringing Nova City to its knees.

And then there’s sixteen-year-old Nicholas Bell: who isn’t Extraordinary in the slightest.Read More.

My Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

This was Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda meets The MCU making for one of the most fun, entertaining and hilarious books I’ve read in a long time. I could not stop smiling!!!

The Extraordinaries follows Nicholas Bell, a sixteen year old queer boy with ADHD who rights fanfiction about Shadow Star, a real life superhero in Nova City. In the beginning of this book Nick makes it his mission to become and Extraordinary too so that he can save lives and he and Shadow Star can live happily ever after. However, as is always the case with a good book you can’t put down, things aren’t as they seem…

I feel like I’ve got so much to say about this book, and I’m excited to spill, but the first thing I have to say is that this book was so much fun! The characters and their relationships (both very well developed), the plot, the dialogue, everything! I’d be reading with a huge grin on my face for chapters at a time without realising.

The writing and the way this story was told definitely added to my enjoyment of the story. It felt as if it was written for my Gen-Z style humour and interests. There was so much pop culture and teenage references but the book didn’t depend on Harry Potter references to make it feel relatable. It was dialogue and phrases such as “shut your whore mouth” and “Nick, no. Nick, yes!” and “be gay, do crimes” which made me sit back and think Oh my God I love this!

I don’t highlight or take the time to write certain things down when I read, I’m too lazy for that and I prefer to stay in the story, but I swear to God I’ve never used the highlight feature on my kindle so much. The witty one liners and hilarious comebacks were too good to ignore.

Speaking of the plot, certain things were predictable but from what I can tell this was intentional. The clues and hints dropped were way too obvious for it not to be and there was a feeling of *wink, wink* *nudge, nudge*. The anticipation came from waiting for the characters, ~~(mainly Nick whose obliviousness rivals Harry Potters)~~, to discover things and the excitement came from awaiting their reaction.

And even then when as a reader you thought you’d sussed things out there’s still plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing and gasping.

Superheroes are EVERYWHERE nowadays. You can’t go a few weeks without Marvel or DC announcing a new movie or TV series so the fact that this book still felt so fresh and orginial is no small feat. Klune took cliché tropes and played into them, turned them on thier heads or even played into the ridiculousness.

This book is jam packed with representation, which of course I loved. Every major character is queer, Nick has ADHD and Gibby is a butch lesbian of colour who’s one liners in this book are iconic.

When I first picked this up I wasn’t sure if I was going to like Nick. It took me a good 30% of the novel before I finally warmed up to him and now I would like to have it on record that I would die for him. He’s a flawed character, he can be pretty self centred at times but he GROWS and better still, his character and entire personality doesn’t completely change with this new found growth as I’ve seen happen a lot of times in books and shows.

There’s also a romance in here that is impossible not to ship and root for. Even the characters in the books themselves were shipping it which shows how cute it was.

I believe there is going to be a sequel, at least there has to be what with how it ended (make sure to read the chapter after the acknowledgements), and so I’m already not so patiently awaiting that. I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend checking this book out and picking it up when it’s released this July!!