Samuel Fleming

To be honest, I believe chapters 1 and part of chapter 2 need extra polishing. There is lots of infodumps at first with very little action (and I am not referring to explosions, more like even a subdued sensation of conflict for the 1st chapter). The closest action the initial chapter gets is a person from Emmett's university yapping at him for doing the bare minimum to get A's in class. That scene also seemed weird to me. In my experience at college, you could be stressed out of your mind or have some kind of grevious personal problem that is making your GPA to collapse in a freefall. Universities will do their best to let you flounder for as long as possible to get more money and then kick you out of the program without a care in the world. There is a reason why the suicide rate of med students in US schools is so absurdly high.

Once chapter 3 starts, the book really picks up and becomes quite hard to put down. Yes, the plot is rather predictable and we all know Emmett will sooner rather than later become involved in the mysterious Supers world. Since I have read so few superhero books, this story feels fresh to me. I liked it how Supers in this world tend to be very lowkey and the only time most people will encounter one is during a battle where they might end up injured. So, it makes sense Emmett feels lured by them despite having a very normal and totally untragic childhood. I am liking all the important characters so far: Lock (who I have a hunch will become a supervillain because he just gives those vibes), Clara, and Dr. Venture with his disdain for decent pizza cuisine.

Now that I have finished the book, I dare say despite being a story that seems to have been done before, I enjoyed the execution, the characters and the interesting variety of superowers. It felt most refreshing Emmett is a weakling among so many invincible titans and he is well aware of his limits.

Despite loving the overall story and characters, I did feel the middle to be very sluggish with far too many chapters focusing on Emmett's beginner training. The reader could skip two chapters and would still understand the rest of the book. Other than that and the beginning that could use more polishing, I enjoyed reading this book quite a lot and would be interested in reading the sequel when I have the chance.… (altro)