[I received an electronic review copy of this book from Netgalley and Del Rey in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]
Summary
An explosion at a mall.
Later another at a church.
Video shows the same kid at the center of both. But how could he survive the first to cause the second? Why do the scenes look nothing like a typical bomb explosion?
It’s because the perpetrator is a Resonant – one of a group of humans with unusual gifts or powers. Most Resonants just want to live their lives without drama or strife. But there will always be a pocket of people who refuse to use their powers for good.
Avi Hirsch is drawn to the “bomb” sites by a friend at Homeland Security. As a reporter, Avi has a reputation as the guy who writes about dangerous locations and moments in a way that everyone wants to read them. His experience gives him a unique view at these particular sites. The Resonants approach Avi, too, to ask him to tell their story. They want a positive spin out in the world before stories like ones about these explosions get tied to them. But Avi’s skills as a reporter aren’t the main reason they’ve reached out to him. It’s Avi’s young daughter, Emmeline. She’s one of them, and she’s incredibly powerful.
Review
If you go into this with the X-men movies in mind, this will feel familiar. Mutants with powers. “Normal” humans become paranoid or want to kill/control the powerful. You get the idea. This also reminded me some of The Darkest Minds with powerful kids, and powered and unpowered folks out to control them.
I had a hard time deciding on a rating for this. It’s long, and big pieces of the story lay dormant for awhile while other pieces amp up. You can almost forget who is who and what is going on in those dormant pieces because the lag is so long. Characters who play a huge role in this book are dead by the end – but the story isn’t over. It’s like they were phase one characters and now we’ve moved onto phase two. At times it was all too much – too long of a story, too slow in development, too dark and violent for my preferences. I kept turning pages more to be done than to see what happened next in some of the story threads.
At the same time, I was also completely caught up in parts of the story. I wanted to know who was behind things and why certain events happened. I was invested in seeing this America find even footing between powered and “regular” people. This takes the hate speech and discrimination of our era and kicks them up to a whole new level. I wanted to see how that played out in the book. I never really “liked” any of the characters, but I was invested in seeing what happened to some of them. So I was generous in my rating based less on my personal enjoyment of the book and more on its potential for the right reader.
To its credit, I felt like this book does a great job with diversity. There are characters of different races and sexual identities, and those elements of the characters felt fully integrated. I never felt like any of them were wedged in just to check off the diversity box. The comparisons of powered people as a minority group to racial and sexual identity minorities and the accompanying hate crimes, lynchings, etc. are obvious and addressed directly. And that was well done, too.
If you enjoy intricate, deep dives into a super powered world, do not miss this one. It’s well written and incredibly twisty. And you’ll have at least as many questions at the end as you have at the beginning. But for me it was too long and too slow in parts to truly enjoy. Maybe with more judicious editing, this could have been a faster-paced sci-fi thriller. (Sexual references, language, LBGTQ+, violence, drinking and drug use)