It took me a minute because I listened with my daughter who doesn’t like to speed her audiobooks up to 2.5, but we finally finished The Extraordinaries, the YA debut of @tjklunebooks.
To say this book has a little bit of everything would be an understatement. Nick Bell writes superhero fan fiction about the real Extraordinaries who live in his town Nova City. He’s a gay teenager with ADHD coming to terms with the death of his mom. He has a huge crush on hero Shadowstar who’s trying to stop the town villain Pyrostrom, but he’s never met either. He’s had the same nerdy best friend since elementary school when he met Seth all alone on the swings, with chocolate pudding on his chin. Only lately Seth seems slightly less nerdy. And Nick has a cute, but swarmy ex named Owen who keeps showing up for reasons that are beyond Nick. And there’s Gibby and Jazz, Nick’s other two best friends, who seem to know a lot more about what’s going on than Nick. When Nick decides he needs to become an extraordinary after running into Shadowstar in a dark alley, things go a little off the wires.
I worried when I started this that I could guess exactly where it was going, but there were a few twists along the way I didn’t see coming. And even if there hadn’t been, this book was so funny I don’t know that it would have mattered. I know there are books out there with main characters who have ADHD, but not enough. It was amazing to sit in Nick’s POV and see what the world looks like through the eyes of someone struggling to do things many of us find easy, but he was also so capable of thinking fantastic things that so many of us can’t. We loved this one so much and can’t wait for the sequel!
A few words about the audio. I’m torn between saying it was the best audiobook I’ve ever listened to and saying that it was overdone. The narrator is amazingly talented, but he emoted on every word. From one narrator we got superhero voices, a hard-boiled cop, a British doctor, a Christian Slater impression, a Jimmy Stewart-esque kind old uncle, and so, so many more characters. Listening was a whole other trip of its own that I kind of think you have to go on just so you can say you did.
To say this book has a little bit of everything would be an understatement. Nick Bell writes superhero fan fiction about the real Extraordinaries who live in his town Nova City. He’s a gay teenager with ADHD coming to terms with the death of his mom. He has a huge crush on hero Shadowstar who’s trying to stop the town villain Pyrostrom, but he’s never met either. He’s had the same nerdy best friend since elementary school when he met Seth all alone on the swings, with chocolate pudding on his chin. Only lately Seth seems slightly less nerdy. And Nick has a cute, but swarmy ex named Owen who keeps showing up for reasons that are beyond Nick. And there’s Gibby and Jazz, Nick’s other two best friends, who seem to know a lot more about what’s going on than Nick. When Nick decides he needs to become an extraordinary after running into Shadowstar in a dark alley, things go a little off the wires.
I worried when I started this that I could guess exactly where it was going, but there were a few twists along the way I didn’t see coming. And even if there hadn’t been, this book was so funny I don’t know that it would have mattered. I know there are books out there with main characters who have ADHD, but not enough. It was amazing to sit in Nick’s POV and see what the world looks like through the eyes of someone struggling to do things many of us find easy, but he was also so capable of thinking fantastic things that so many of us can’t. We loved this one so much and can’t wait for the sequel!
A few words about the audio. I’m torn between saying it was the best audiobook I’ve ever listened to and saying that it was overdone. The narrator is amazingly talented, but he emoted on every word. From one narrator we got superhero voices, a hard-boiled cop, a British doctor, a Christian Slater impression, a Jimmy Stewart-esque kind old uncle, and so, so many more characters. Listening was a whole other trip of its own that I kind of think you have to go on just so you can say you did.