April Daniels (1)

Exciting YA fare about a trans superhero and her origin story! Featuring some great characters, a lot of simple but cinematic description, and unobtrusive worldbuilding that does a great job making a superhero world both innovative and classic. I loved that instead of using sci fi gobbledygook to explain the superhero-adjacent "hypertech" gadgets, Daniels straight out admits that in this world the science doesn't make any sense but works anyway.

I feel like the book is a little unbalanced show more pacing and suspense-wise, but it did its job keeping me engaged all the way through, and I'm interested in seeing what happens in book two. The writing can also get a bit heavy-handed, but in a way that's a fine fit both for YA and for the superhero genre. A lot of tropes, but April Daniels does them well.

Dreadnought also feels very classic superhero comic in that it doesn't hold back on the violence-- Danny and her fellow capes, though wielding incredible powers, are not invulnerable. There's quite a bit of serious injury and death, and Danny takes a lot of physical punishment while slinging planes and battling villains. These things, along with the stark treatment of her struggles against transphobia and homophobia, make for a bit of a challenging read at times (especially when you remember again that she's only 15 years old!), but the book handles everything well and creates a story more moving for the realness of its stakes.

Not a perfect book, but a good read.


(Just a note: I'm cis. You can find links to reviews of Dreadnought written by trans and/or nonbinary reviewers in this list.) show less

This book exists right below the wow threadhold for me, which just means this was immensely satisfying and pleasant to read. The superhero story was exactly how I like them—fun and a little zany, but with depth and a hint of darkness. Cool powers, cool world-building, a remix of some familiar tropes, fun characters, generally diverse, etc. It’s a pretty classic origin story, with all the power tests and stumbles and amateur heroics I enjoy, with a few roadblocks I didn’t expect but show more which made sense within the teen or trans contexts.

I’m going to gloss over the YA aspects for brevity. Daniels writes teens well, writes high school well, and writes teens fighting the system with a light, almost “YA contemporary” touch rather than veering towards “teen dystopia”. There’s nothing that really shines, but it doesn’t need to. The YA-ness isn’t the point of the book, Danny’s growing confidence notwithstanding.

The point is the trans-ness, and as you’d expect from a trans author, it is on point. On one hand, it’s reasonably trans 101, running from negative reactions and TERFs to smaller things like the sudden need for bras, but it never feels didactic and gives Danny plenty of time to both enjoy her new body and be awesome. Daniels walks the line between “harsh realities” and “entertaining story” beautifully, and the way she handles the darker aspects makes it clear she knows but doesn’t want to trigger anyone either. (Don’t worry: for every character who says Danny’s lying, there’s someone who believes her and has her back.)

Superpowers get used as metaphors for queerness or visible minorities a lot, but I think this might be the first time I’ve seen the queerness both on the page and playing into the story. Danny’s powers are the vehicle for and the metaphor for her transition, and she has to work out the limits of her powers and whether she’s a true hero at the same time as working out who she is now that she passes. There’s some other stuff that ties into the queer/powers metaphor—interesting stuff—and … yeah. This story wouldn’t have been half as good if it had been about only a teen superhero or only a trans lesbian. It’s a perfect example of doing queer fiction well.

In short: solid superhero novel + solid YA novel + solid Own Voices trans novel = very solid novel. Definitely recommended.

Warnings: Protagonist subject to transphobia, abusive parenting, and brief homelessness.

8/10 show less

Think you're lonely? Think the world is against you? Try being trans. I am happy this book exists. You could criticize the cliches or the simplifications of real issues, but this is a book that explains some difficult things to 13-year-olds. So many tiny emotional details ring true.The big, bludgeoning messages in the book are fine with me, as it is a comic book story. I wanted to clean-up plot arcs a bit, but it's written way better than a comic book. If you read closely, you'll see subtle show more and nuanced character moments in amongst the giant, technicolor thought bubbles. I had to stop reading a few times due to tears, anger, and fear. The book reminds you what it is like to be a powerless teenager. It might help you empathize with an ostracized population. show less

I'd been selling this with an emphasis on the trans character, but after I read it I changed my mind. Sure, she's trans (and also the daughter of an abusive father, which the book also handles reasonably well), but this is primarily a straight-up great superhero story. Daniels has created a whole new superhero universe that will work for Marvel fans without being bogged down in decades of convoluted continuity issues. This is the first trans character I have read in genre fiction, and hooray show more for more of that! Also hooray for superhero stories that explore the grey areas of good guys and bad guys. Aside from classic superhero stories, this book reminds me most of my beloved [b:Rot & Ruin|7157310|Rot & Ruin (Rot & Ruin, #1)|Jonathan Maberry|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1264898635s/7157310.jpg|7443037] in that it is a great adventure while also being an exploration of "who are the bad guys really?"

(Full disclosure: the author is a friend-of-a-friend, and I read and commented on a very early draft of the first chapter. I feel honored to have been part of the origin story of such a cool, unique book!) show less