![]() ![]() ![]() The book alternates between present-day scenes and flashbacks, and a large part of the success of the novel rests in the fact that Schwab successfully pulls off this technical trick without blunting her momentum. And on its own terms, it’s an enjoyable tale. If you do, you’re left with a well-paced and sharply-structured novel. In some ways, it’s best to simply ignore the ‘super-hero’ tag. Its handling of ideas of heroism felt like a reiteration of themes comics (Marvel, DC, and independent) have been interrogating relentlessly (if not neurotically) for at least thirty years. Reading it, I found that the book seemed interested in questions of morality, heroism, and villainy, but that the super-hero aspects were so attenuated I doubt it would have occurred to me to consider it as a super-hero story without the claims of the book jacket. Billed by some as a super-hero story, it had elements of that genre while also, to some extent, questioning its assumptions. Schwab had written a number of YA novels when, in 2013, Tor published her book Vicious. ![]()
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