“Jess is too big for her skin, as if she might float away in the exhilarating possibility of the moment.” // Review of “Not Your Sidekick” by C. B. Lee

Title: Not Your Sidekick (Sidekick Squad #1)
Author: C. B. Lee
Genre: YA/sci-fi/romance
Date Read: 28/11/2017 – 31/11/2017
Rating: ★★★

Review:

I really wanted to love this book for everything it was doing. Sadly, I didn’t feel the writing was quite good enough for to do anything more than mildly enjoy it.

Since it seems she is not going to manifest any kind of superpower like those of her parents and sister, Jess Tran begins applying for internships which might help her at least find a good college program. When she begins working for the town’s biggest supervillain, along with her longtime crush, Abby, she begins to question the superhero culture of the United States, and wonders whether the Heroes League of Heroes may have something to hide.

If I were just rating this book on its diversity, it would get five stars. In fact, it would probably get ten stars out of five. Jess is Asian-American and bisexual, and the romance between her and Abby is cute. And a slow-burn, which is how I like my romances. There’s no insta-love here. One of Jess’ best friends, Bells, is a black trans guy and the other, Emma, has two mums. It’s so nice to see this sort of thing in a book that doesn’t focus on it. It’s just incidental in how these people live their lives.

The world-building was fairly basic but fine, but I just found myself not that impressed with the writing. A lot of the plot was fairly predicatable, and there was something stopping me from getting truly invested in the characters. The plot did pick up a bit more in the last quarter or maybe third, and I actually think that maybe things will improve in the second book (which I have started recently). While it may not have been my favourite book, I can totally appreciate the love it is getting from people who identify with the different aspects of Jess and her friends, and I want to support that so that perhaps more of these types of books will get published.

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