Not Your Villain

Gr 7–10—In this installment, readers meet Bells and his friends in a future where superpowered heroes and villains are essential aspects of politics as well as American culture. As a shapeshifter, the hero is inducted into the league after years of training in a secret location, only to discover that the battles between villains and heroes is more con job than factual. Lee writes with humor and a sense of lightness that gives buoyancy even to the grim twists and turns of this deception and the vicissitudes of Bells's love life. An element of this futuristic society is that acceptance of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities has vastly improved: Bells is trans, one of his older brothers is aromantic, and his friends all present a variation on the identity spectrum that read both realistic and reassuring to readers looking into this future. Pacing presents a problem, however, as time and events move rapidly with sequencing that feels more like a comic book or a movie than a narrative novel. While this is disorienting at first, enough character development and logic are maintained that this becomes less distracting as the story unspools. In addition to truly amicable and delightful peers, Bells also inhabits a world of mostly friendly and capable adults. All in all, both the action and the tweaks to typical world-building make this charmingly fresh.