trike's review against another edition
3.0
I've had this book on my to-read pile for years. It's a pretty big pile.
Anyway, it gets 3 stars because I neither loved it nor hated it. The characters, plot and situations are all fairly generic, reflected by its generic title, but on the positive side the world-building is quite interesting and the writing is very good.
Some of the twists are tremendously obvious, but I liked how they treated the world as a given, without over-explaining the basics. The structure feels like a medieval Fantasy novel, where you're just thrown into it and expected to piece things together rather than have everything explained to you via infodump.
Overall, a solid entry in the superhero fiction genre. There is a sequel, which hopefully avoids the generic pitfalls of this one, but I suspect there will be more on the whole "good v. evil = black v. white" thing going on, since it's entitled [b:Shades of Gray|8534551|Shades of Gray (The Icarus Project, #2)|Jackie Kessler|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328338937s/8534551.jpg|6805695]. (Seriously ladies, try to come up with original titles. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a specific book with these titles? Maddening!)
Anyway, it gets 3 stars because I neither loved it nor hated it. The characters, plot and situations are all fairly generic, reflected by its generic title, but on the positive side the world-building is quite interesting and the writing is very good.
Some of the twists are tremendously obvious, but I liked how they treated the world as a given, without over-explaining the basics. The structure feels like a medieval Fantasy novel, where you're just thrown into it and expected to piece things together rather than have everything explained to you via infodump.
Overall, a solid entry in the superhero fiction genre. There is a sequel, which hopefully avoids the generic pitfalls of this one, but I suspect there will be more on the whole "good v. evil = black v. white" thing going on, since it's entitled [b:Shades of Gray|8534551|Shades of Gray (The Icarus Project, #2)|Jackie Kessler|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328338937s/8534551.jpg|6805695]. (Seriously ladies, try to come up with original titles. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a specific book with these titles? Maddening!)
randalm's review against another edition
3.0
Grrrl powers. A by-the-book hero with shadow abilities takes on her friend-turned-enemy, an anti-hero who projects light and heat (as well as lots of attitude). "Black and White" plays more with the shades of gray between lawful and unlawful than truly explores good and evil. It's an entertaining enough read with a less-than-super ending.
crankyraconteur's review against another edition
3.0
I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. It started off very interesting, ing me right away. Then somewhere along the line, it turned into Dawson's Creek with superheroes. I lost interest. Towards the end, it picked up a little more, but the ending was so beyond trite that I just was really glad to be done with it at that point. There was no big, shocking ending, though the author seemed to intend it to play out that way. I'll most likely pick up Shades of Gray just to see how that plays out, if anything gets better for these characters, but at this point I'm not really holding my breath.
beckylej's review against another edition
5.0
It’s Heroes meets X-Men in the style of classic comics as authors Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge team up to put their own spin on the superhero genre in Black and White, the first of the Icarus Project series. Jet, a Shadow power and official superhero of New Chicago, is a by-the-book gal who always follows the rules as set forth in her Academy training. Once, she and Iridium were the best of friends. Now they are powerful enemies. But neither of them truly understands the pieces that have been set into play. Jet believes that they are on opposite sides, that she fights for good while Iridium has followed in her father’s footsteps along the path of anarchy and misrule. Jet will soon discover that the line between good and evil is not as clear as she once believed, and it could tear apart the fragile control she maintains over her power. Excellent, excellent read. Kessler and Kittredge work together with seeming ease and have created a tale that is addictively readable.
jacquelinec's review against another edition
4.0
I won this ARC a few weeks ago from Jackie Kessler and I'm just now getting around to reading and reviewing it. There's not much that I can say about it without giving away the plot so I'll try to sum it up in a word - amazing.
Given the facts that this novel is written by two authors, features two main characters and jumps back and forth from the past to the present, it's amazing just how seamlessly this story flows.
Jet and Iridium together make the ideal heroine. If the story was just about one of them, it would feel incomplete. Add to that the fully realized backstory, the great pacing and the well drawn characters, and you have an almost perfect beginning to what promises to be an amazing series...
...To continue reading this review, visit my blog Undercover Book Lover.
Given the facts that this novel is written by two authors, features two main characters and jumps back and forth from the past to the present, it's amazing just how seamlessly this story flows.
Jet and Iridium together make the ideal heroine. If the story was just about one of them, it would feel incomplete. Add to that the fully realized backstory, the great pacing and the well drawn characters, and you have an almost perfect beginning to what promises to be an amazing series...
...To continue reading this review, visit my blog Undercover Book Lover.
theteenidol's review against another edition
2.0
I was recommended this book nearly ten years ago, but didn’t actually read it until now. I thought my expectations going in might have been a little high since it was recommended to me by more than one person, but after thinking about it, that’s not really the case.
It’s all just too much. Its’s set in a weird, cyberpunk world, there’s a superhero academy that’s sponsored by a corporation (I think?), and every hero’s powers fall into one of several categories and each category has their own “fatal flaw”. Superheroes that graduate from the academy can get sponsors and endorsements from cities and corporations, and if they don’t they can be mercenaries or rogues, or rabids, or whatever else. Or they can just get normal 9-5’s, which the book suggests most of them do.
I didn’t really find any of the characters relatable and they all talk on the same snarky, sarcastic tone that just annoyed me after a while. Even in normal conversations.
The two plot twists that come along in the last hundred pages or so were completely obvious. Then, Bruce/Tazer turning on Night at the end was lame and felt like a cop out. Also, why did Night let Iridium keep talking to Jet at the end? He should have just knocked her out so she couldn’t talk Jet out of shadowing the sun. Plus, there’s the ol’ villain-explaining-their-entire-master-plan cliche. And every Shadow power ends up going crazy? Why don’t they do something about that? It makes no sense. The world building is just bad and incomplete.
Trying not to rant too much here, so I finish up. The flashback scenes are okay and it’s kinda cool seeing some of the other powers in action, but even that is just eh.
It’s all just too much. Its’s set in a weird, cyberpunk world, there’s a superhero academy that’s sponsored by a corporation (I think?), and every hero’s powers fall into one of several categories and each category has their own “fatal flaw”. Superheroes that graduate from the academy can get sponsors and endorsements from cities and corporations, and if they don’t they can be mercenaries or rogues, or rabids, or whatever else. Or they can just get normal 9-5’s, which the book suggests most of them do.
I didn’t really find any of the characters relatable and they all talk on the same snarky, sarcastic tone that just annoyed me after a while. Even in normal conversations.
The two plot twists that come along in the last hundred pages or so were completely obvious. Then, Bruce/Tazer turning on Night at the end was lame and felt like a cop out. Also, why did Night let Iridium keep talking to Jet at the end? He should have just knocked her out so she couldn’t talk Jet out of shadowing the sun. Plus, there’s the ol’ villain-explaining-their-entire-master-plan cliche. And every Shadow power ends up going crazy? Why don’t they do something about that? It makes no sense. The world building is just bad and incomplete.
Trying not to rant too much here, so I finish up. The flashback scenes are okay and it’s kinda cool seeing some of the other powers in action, but even that is just eh.
kelseyjobrien's review against another edition
3.0
I liked this book, but I think that it could have been written so much better. The book was split up between the do good hero, Jet, and the "rabid, evil genius" that is Iridium. Jackie Kessler wrote Jet's part, and Caitlin Kittredge wrote Iridium's. I've never read any of their writings before, but I found that I liked Kittredge's writing exceptionally more than Kessler's. Iridium was funny and someone I could easily relate to, whereas Jet only cared about the corporation she was working for, and about her gorgeous Runner, Bruce. The reader finds out why, of course, but I didn't buy it. The book is so long that this realization about Jet and the Corp that comes at the end feels like it should be given 100 more pages of explanation, instead of 30. I also don't think the book should have been over 400 pages long. There was a lot of things the writers could have cut out.
I also didn't like that fact that there was really no background or information given about the world the "extrahumans" live in, and that bugged me because I didn't know what half the things were, and if there was description, I would have been ok with the book being over 400 pages long. I don't know why extrahumans are even a thing. Is this new? Is this a world where they have existed since the beginning of humanity? What year is this even set in? We get clips of writing that is dated at 2112 AD, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's the year. What's the Icarus Project? What's Everyman? Everyman was a big part of this book, but there's no explanation or background on them, there's no description about gadgets or anything, so the book kind of confused me a little bit. As sort of stated above, too, the book rushes the ending. There's a huge build up to the "final battle" between good and evil (which was obviously from about half way through who the real evil was) but it's over within forty five pages or so.
My favorite parts of the novel were the flashbacks to the training Jet and Iridium received at the Academy. I thought that, for a first book, they could have just written about that, and kept it at around 200 pages, then for the second book, write about the rift between Jet and Iridium, and the battle that happens at the end. Then a third book could be Jet and Iridium dealing with what happens after this battle. That way, each book could have been 200 pages or so. Instead of one book that was close to 500 pages, we could have gotten more description and background, and it would have made more sense.
With all of that being said, the book was still ok, and it was about superheroes, so I enjoyed it. I have to say that I don't think I would have liked this book if it wasn't about superheroes, but I do plan on reading the next book in this series.
I also didn't like that fact that there was really no background or information given about the world the "extrahumans" live in, and that bugged me because I didn't know what half the things were, and if there was description, I would have been ok with the book being over 400 pages long. I don't know why extrahumans are even a thing. Is this new? Is this a world where they have existed since the beginning of humanity? What year is this even set in? We get clips of writing that is dated at 2112 AD, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's the year. What's the Icarus Project? What's Everyman? Everyman was a big part of this book, but there's no explanation or background on them, there's no description about gadgets or anything, so the book kind of confused me a little bit. As sort of stated above, too, the book rushes the ending. There's a huge build up to the "final battle" between good and evil (which was obviously from about half way through who the real evil was) but it's over within forty five pages or so.
My favorite parts of the novel were the flashbacks to the training Jet and Iridium received at the Academy. I thought that, for a first book, they could have just written about that, and kept it at around 200 pages, then for the second book, write about the rift between Jet and Iridium, and the battle that happens at the end. Then a third book could be Jet and Iridium dealing with what happens after this battle. That way, each book could have been 200 pages or so. Instead of one book that was close to 500 pages, we could have gotten more description and background, and it would have made more sense.
With all of that being said, the book was still ok, and it was about superheroes, so I enjoyed it. I have to say that I don't think I would have liked this book if it wasn't about superheroes, but I do plan on reading the next book in this series.
jen1110's review
4.0
This book rocked my superhero socks. I like the world that the authors created. I think that the ending could have been drawn out a little more, but it didn't feel rushed enough to detract from the story. It was the perfect antidote to an unfortunate dose of bad fiction.
alittlespook's review
4.0
Definitely not a kids novel, but I have to love the twisted stories of two female superheroes in a battle against an Orwellian society.
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