REVIEWED by Jay V.
TITLE: Flash Fire
AUTHOR: TJ Klune
SERIES: The Extraordinaries #2
PUBLISHER: Tor Teen
LENGTH: 377 pages
RELEASE DATE: July 13, 2021
BLURB:
Through bravery, charm, and an alarming amount of enthusiasm, Nick landed himself the superhero boyfriend of his dreams. Now instead of just writing stories about him, Nick actually gets to kiss him. On the mouth. A lot. But having a superhero boyfriend isn’t everything Nick thought it would be—he’s still struggling to make peace with his own lack of extraordinary powers.
When new Extraordinaries begin arriving in Nova City—siblings who can manipulate smoke and ice, a mysterious hero who can move objects with their mind, and a drag queen superhero with the best name and the most-sequined costume anyone has ever had—it’s up to Nick and his friends Seth, Gibby, and Jazz to deterine who is virtuous and who is villainous.
And new Extraordinaries aren’t the only things coming to light. Long-held secrets and neglected truths are surfacing that challenge everything Nick knows about justice, family, and being extraordinary. Which is a lot to handle when Nick really just wants to finish his self-insert bakery AU fanfic.
Will it all come together in the end or will it all go down in flames?
REVIEW:
The book begins very similar to the first – a chapter of Nick’s superhero fanfic saga. It’s almost so meta that it inverts itself to being anti-meta – the writing is just so reflective of a teen fanboy fanboying – is that a word? And since he’s in the middle of a story himself, some of the true happenings are going on in his story while others are wishful thinking. Having that tongue-in-cheek tone kicks off this book. And there’s a bit more humor than the first.
We are continuing on with the story of Nick & his now confirmed boyfriend, Seth, trying to navigate the world of Extraordinaries, who are starting to slowly pop up – to the good and bad of the city and the inner circle’s lives. In many ways, Nick’s just a normal kid with ADHD trying to navigate the trials and tribulations of high school, which can be daunting at many times. Continuing with one of Klune’s central themes in most of his books, the found family gets some new additions and there’s some growing pains surround it.
Klune is always an excellent writer and this one isn’t dumbed down for teens. There is talk about sex but much more nebulous and along the lines of deciding if/when to have sex, and parents are there to totally destroy the glamour, much to all the teen’s embarrassments. The one thing that I would say drags down this book’s pacing is making up for an issue that was pointed out in the first book, which is the idea of police and their roles in society. In this area, the book does leads in to some what could be deemed preaching about how people view police from many different perspectives. Was it necessary? As it ventures off on the topic, it stars to drag down that section of the book. Generally, Klune is good with wrapping concepts and opinions into his storyline but this one goes slightly too much and slows the pace. Nice that he gave some insight but wasn’t sure if it was for the story or to appease critics. You can be the judge of that part.
This is the middle book of the series so it’s not always easy to keep an exciting arch or even more of a buildup. The novel is flanked by big scenes near the beginning and end of the book, leaving the middle to be more of discoveries and laying out a larger picture. It’s still worth reading but taken with a grain of salt. Some things are predictable and there’s others that will shock & surprise. I can’t lie in that I still will want to read the next one, but it’s slightly tempered by this book in the series.
RATING:
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