Sir Thomas More by Hals Holbein (Accessed via Wikipedia ) During lockdown, we had Time. Remember that? I was in my probationary year of teaching: almost certainly among the most exhausting years for any profession. All my time had been taken up with school work, and I regularly stayed at school until after 6pm, having arrived there at eight in the morning. Now, children, this is not sustainable and, very soon, I decided I didn’t like working where I was. Then I realised that I didn’t like teaching at all. But, in fact, neither was particularly true: I just needed to be true to myself and to say no, which would give me the ability to manage my work/life balance in a more appropriate way. What does this have to do with historical fiction, I hear you say? Well, during March 2020, we went into lockdown and suddenly I went from working ten-hour-days to ten-hour-weeks. I met up with my class on Google Meet, I put work up for them on a meticulously designed Google Classroom, but I just h...
I have so much I want to say about Even
Heroes. The first thing is that I was desperate to know how it ended, which
is a sure sign of a good book. I was invested in the characters from early on,
but I really did not like Vincent. He’s exceptionally judgmental about everyone
around him and, because it’s all from his point of view, you get every sniping
thought which goes through his head. But that’s not a bad thing at all – for a
protagonist who fancies himself a superhero, the antihero vibe works very well.
I felt particularly sorry for his
mum. Vincent’s dad has been out of the picture since he was a little boy, and
she’s understandably very protective of him, especially given the fact he has
serious asthma. He is just mean about her all the time and, in fact, comes
across as very cold towards her at times. I think the fact she perseveres with
him probably means she’s a serious contender for Mother of the Year. There’s
one particular bit where she dares to give him tofu and he’s really rude
about it. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t stand tofu, but the poor woman is doing
her best!
Once you get into the swing of it,
you can easily get swept along with the adventure which Vincent embarks on.
Once or twice, it’s a bit too much. I could have done without the inference
that Vincent manages to cure his asthma with sheer determination. And, as a
teacher, I struggle to believe that all but one of the teachers at Vincent’s
school believe that he’s this trouble-causing little pain in the backside,
rather than noticing that two of his peers are physically and mentally
torturing him. Even when I was being bullied at secondary school, teachers were
reasonably good at noticing physical things, even if the sneakier nastiness stayed
under the radar.
Even for a YA novel, Even Heroes
is on the long side but there is never a moment where you feel like the
action has stalled. I don’t think it needs as many chapters as it has (I would
have combined a few of them) but the author works the cliff-hangers very well,
so the end of a chapter is rarely a point when you want to stop reading! You
hear every thought in Vincent’s head, which helps to build tension at some of
the crucial points, and the action is very visual, almost like you’re seeing it
in a graphic novel.
In summary, an action-packed novel which will take you through some of the darkest aspects of adolescence in America.
Blurb (from Goodreads)
A regular kid. An impossible dream.
Thirteen-year-old Vincent’s fantasy of being a superhero can never come true for two reasons. One: he’s an asthmatic weakling whose mom won’t even let him walk up a flight of stairs (something the school bullies happily remind him of each time they stick his head in the toilet). And two: this is the real world, where superheroes don’t actually exist.
Neither of these reasons can stop Vincent from donning a mask, cape, and homemade bulletproof shield, or from spending hours training to fight imaginary bad guys. Then one night, he captures an actual bad guy—and becomes an honest-to-goodness hero in the process. Soon, Vincent is living his dream life: corralling criminals by night, navigating new friendships by day, and keeping the mother of all secrets from the world’s most overprotective mom.
There’s only one flaw in Vincent’s fantastic new existence: he’s still just a regular kid. And he’s about to face his deadliest foe yet—a merciless killer who doesn’t care how old (or young) his victims are. To survive, Vincent must rely on his new friends, unite with old enemies, and accept a painful truth rarely found in his beloved comic books:
That sometimes, even heroes can’t save the day.
Crikey, I don't suppose sticking his head down the toilet helps much with asthma either!!
ReplyDeleteI know - he does have it very tough, bless him! The bullies are absolutely horrible - and not very subtle about it either!
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