Reviews

The dirty little secret about growing up as a boy is if you’re not any good at it, they will torture you daily until you have the good graces to kill yourself. [loc. 82]

YA superhero fiction. Danny, fifteen, has gone to the shopping mall to buy nail polish and is hiding out in an alleyway painting her toenails: it's the one way she can rebel against being stuck in a boy's body. Then a superhero, Dreadnought, falls out of the sky. Dying, he passes his 'mantle' -- his powers -- to Danny. And part of that mantle is changing the recipient's body to match their self-image. 'That is not the chest I woke up with', observes Danny.

She's finally herself: but her transformation is only the start of the novel. It's not easy being a fifteen-year-old superhero, but it's even harder being a girl with an abusive father who could never have accepted Danny's transgender identity, and refuses to believe that Danny can be happy about her new body. Danny quickly discovers that her best friend David is actually a complete jerk: but she makes a new friend, Latina vigilante Calamity. Calamity's a 'greycape', morally ambiguous: blackcapes are villains, and whitecapes are the good guys. The local whitecape chapter is the Legion Pacifica, who contact Danny and invite her to Legion Tower. Not all of the Legion are cool with the new Dreadnought, and TERFy Graywytch questions her gender. Danny's happier hanging out with Calamity and fighting crime, but their ambition is greater than their ability: going up against a major blackcape is not a smart move.

I enjoyed this a lot, though did feel that most of the characters could have done with more backstory, and indeed more personality. I'd have liked more world-building, too, though there are some intriguing snippets of superhero history: 'In the last great gasp of radio journalism, the whole world stayed glued to their sets to listen to the live reports as [the original] Dreadnought and Mistress Malice savaged each other...' But this gave me a warm glow and a nostalgic affection for the MCU in its heyday (the Legion are reminiscent of the Avengers: a super-strong fighter, an android, a Norse deity, a guy in a suit of armour, a witch...). Not sure I'll read the sequel just yet, but I'd recommend this as a fun read.

I bought this in DEC 2020, and finally read it as part of my 'Down in the Cellar' self-challenge, which riffs on the metaphor of to-be-read pile as wine-cellar rather than to-do list.

Content Warnings

yarrowkat's review against another edition

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4.0

Sweet, fun and highly entertaining.

caroldavid's review

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

ohmage_resistance's review against another edition

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adventurous inspiring medium-paced

Diverse cast of characters? Yes

Closeted trans girl gets to magically transition as a side effect of getting superpowers.
I generally liked this one. However, superheroes generally aren’t my favorite genre, and so I generally didn’t like those parts about the book too much. I didn’t hate them, just didn’t find it super interesting. I think it’s often difficult to translate the kind of slap dash worldbuilding of superhero comics into a novel, and this book did an ok but not a great job (I think a lot of the more successful cases I’ve read do this by using comedy—shout out to The Meister of Decimen City—or by making the world a dystopia). Danielle was also quite difficult to physically hurt, and I feel like that took the tension away from a lot of the fight scenes.
What I think this book did really well is exploring Danielle’s experiences after she came out and transitioned, both good and bad. I’ve seen some reviews commenting on Danny’s experiences with a TERF superhero and with her sexist best friend, but I think the one that really stuck out to me was her experiences with her abusive parents. It has some really powerful examples of how strong verbal abuse can be, even without physical abuse, and how toxic masculinity leads to abusive behavior. You can really tell just how much Danny’s father has influenced how she views herself, and her struggle to overcome that was the most interesting arc in the book for me. It also shows how Danny’s mother’s more passive but still transphobic behavior just adds fuel to the fire. I will say all of these elements do make this book a lot darker than a lot of YA books, but I still think these issues are really relevant to teens. There’s also a lot more slurs in this book than I was expecting, but April Daniels is very deliberate about when she uses them. There were also examples of Danny celebrating having a body she feels comfortable in and people who accept her, so it’s not all just depressing stuff.

Content Warnings

av23qt's review against another edition

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challenging emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

elfduchess's review against another edition

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4.0

While I like the story and it was pretty much EXACTLY what I hoped it would be, this book was difficult to read at times. Honestly, the stuff Danny goes through from her parents - you know, the people that are SUPPOSED to love you no matter what - was painful. (Made even worse for me because I could see shades of my father in Danny's.) But, I like Danny and she has already grown and developed wonderfully as a character so I'm very excited to see how she keeps growing. And special mention must be made of Sarah who is pretty cool herself and I love her and Danny's friendship. (Maybe more? It seems like she's got a bit of a crush on Danny.)

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