![]() ![]() Then in year two, the characters become the ones to throw that party. Just as a non-spoiler, low impact example, freshman year, they attend an annual party thrown by the sophomores. Add on top of that was something from my personal progression-fantasy wishlist: seeing the characters take on roles once held by older mentor figures. What I really enjoyed was how distinct the school years felt, each one having its own overarching goal/milestone for the students' education. And of those, this is far and away the one I think handles the school stuff the best.įor one thing, the plot never gets bored, gives up, and drops all pretense of this being about the school. Instead, school stuff like lessons, exams, rivalries-and introductions to post-grad opportunities in book four-remain a focus of the story all the way through without a loss of stakes (barring one moment in book four where the lack of stakes gets turned on its head in a fun mini-revelation for a major character). I have encountered, to my memory, three superhero school properties-this, My Hero Academia, and Sky High. It petered off towards the end, but by that point I was too invested to mind-much. And so many of my personal favorite tropes-the troublemaking guy and the proper lady, the too good to be true guy who is that good, the emotionless drone and the shameless flirt, the genuinely wholesome cinnamon rolls, fight-flirting, fake-dating, getting drunk and embarrassing yourself in front of your love interest-a lot of good, my taste-specific stuff. There is in fact, quite a bit of this in those first two/three books. Interspersed through all of it, particularly in the first three years, is college interpersonal drama and social milestones as people flirt, date, break-up, make friends, go to parties, get jobs, hang out, all that jazz. There are essentially two major storylines running through the series-the basic quest for graduation, and a looming conspiracy of corruption and murder centering on the program/procedure that turned the main characters from Powereds to Supers and how it came to be. Six secretly ex-Powered characters enrolling in Superhero College. And that got me in the door. The six main characters (Alice, Mary, Vince, Nick, Hershel, and Roy) are the first Powereds to be turned into Supers by a top secret experimental process, who then decide to all enroll in hero college. ![]() Everybody got that? Supers = control, Powereds = no control. In-universe is kind of treated like disability (Put a pin in that). Being Powered can be an inconvenience, or it can be a hazard to the health of the Powered and everyone around them. Of those, Supers are people who can control their abilities, while Powereds are people who cannot. The other is…well it confused me the first time I read the explanation so let’s see if I do better:A small percentage of the world is born with special abilities. Take My Hero Academia or Sky High, and bump the story into college so everyone can drink, swear, and have sex (which they do). ![]() Two basic ideas make up the core building blocks of the story: superhero school (college), and the concept of Supers vs Powereds. This review does contain what I consider to be “soft spoilers”, which is to say no concrete details, and they shouldn’t lessen the oomph of any of the moments should you end up taking the plunge yourself. That way you can stay the fuck away from it check it out if it sounds like your thing. So I think it would be most helpful to breakdown exactly what was working so well for me in this series and why, and what flaws I was able to ignore/live with. To essentially plagiarize Yahtzee Croshaw, yes, I know nothing is for everyone, but I feel like this was specifically for me, and I am weird. What I do know is that this series is not for everyone. It had so thoroughly taken over my life, I had to finish the entire series-all apparently million fucking words of it-in the span of five days just so I could get my life back. I lost hours on hours of sleep reading it late into the night, to the severe detriment of my health and safety (not joking). I was, quite simply, completely addicted to this series. It consumed my every waking thought. Sometimes, I run into things like Super Powereds, which I loved, but cannot recommend without an entire blog post’s worth of asterisks. Sometimes, a thing hurts me in a way so deep and personal I just have to get it off my chest. Sometimes, I love something so much, I have to talk about it. I much prefer to just give things I like five stars as a show of support, and stay silent on things I didn’t enjoy or things I wouldn’t necessarily feel confident recommending. Especially if I come away from something feeling very. rude? Unprofessional? I don’t know, but it typically doesn’t sit right with me. So, as a writer, I’m not usually super comfortable doing full-on reviews of things, especially negative ones. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |