Not Your Sidekick

Sidekick Squad Series, Book 1

By: C.B. Lee

Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller

Length: 8 hrs

Publisher's summary

Welcome to Andover...

where superpowers are common, but internships are complicated.

Just ask high school nobody, Jessica Tran. Despite her heroic lineage, Jess is resigned to a life without superpowers and is merely looking to beef-up her college applications when she stumbles upon the perfect (paid!) internship only it turns out to be for the town's most heinous supervillain.

On the upside, she gets to work with her longtime secret crush, Abby, who Jess thinks may have a secret of her own. Then there's the budding attraction to her fellow intern, the mysterious "M", who never seems to be in the same place as Abby. But what starts as a fun way to spite her superhero parents takes a sudden and dangerous turn when she uncovers a plot larger than heroes and villains altogether.

©2016 C.B. Lee (P)2018 Tantor

Plot's predictable - til it twists! Fun & original

I enjoyed the first few chapters of the novel while feeling like I knew exactly where it was headed (the secret identities of some of the superpowered characters, for instance, can be seen a mile away)......but then, gradually, the plot steered itself in directions I had no idea were coming! A cute but simple but cute story suddenly became much more complex and interesting. The common-to-fiction powers of flight and super-strength, for instance, are joined by a couple powers I've never seen in superpower fiction. Characters who seemed straightforward reveal new layers. And the whole premise of supervillain vs. superhero battles being consumed as entertainment, which is interesting in its own right, becomes even more fascinating as more facts about those battles are revealed.
This novel a fun read (/listen) all the way through, but it also ends up exploring serious themes like racism, media consumption, what counts as criminal behavior, and government control.

Great story

It was an amazing story,I loved it. I listened to it multiple times. it has a lot of romance at the end.

Great concept, ending was...okay

Overall, I really liked this book. I loved how it served all sorts of representation without feeling forced at all. I enjoyed the world building, and the way the world grew up around me.
The only reason this isn't a five star review, is the ending.
tbh, it feels like this book just sort of...stops. Nothing is resolved, and I feel like even though Bells has his own story, Jess' story deserved a better conclusion.

A fluffy and fun love story

This journey of love and self discovery was a nice listen. Some of the "twists" felt way too obvious for my taste, but I can easily see how others would revel in the build up. The audio quality specifically wasn't balanced well, and I found myself messing with the volume frequently to hear the quiet bits and not feel overwhelmed by the loud bits. Performance was fine, just balancing issues.

Great story and great read

The main characters have a distinct sound which is nice. The story itself has some twists you'll see coming but you're supposed to. Feeling you knew those distracts from some other surprises later. Story is fun, switches well between serious and silly.

amazing superhero story

this was an excellent superhero story about a young woman discovering and finding
confidence to be herself. there are a lot of little twists that play out very well.
The narrator can be quiet sometimes but this is only a problem if you're listening on speakers. I highly recommend only using headphones when listening to this book. I can't wait for part two!

loved the story

can't wait to read the next installment! I struggled with the audio volume on this though. it varies far too much, too quiet most of the time and then a couple characters' voices are way louder. the overall volume is too quiet for me to listen anywhere that was moderately noisy and I don't have that problem with other books so that was annoying and made it take longer for me to be able to finish this. thankfully the story was worth it. while predictable, still enjoyable.

best book I've ever read, amazing narration

trans girl here, and this story has given me 18 years of extra life by being so cute, charming, awkward, badass, meaningful, and just unafraid to say exactly what it wants to say. I highly recommend this to anyone in minority communities and tired of having to settle for seeing themselves only vaguely reflected in popular media, and especially to anyone in the lgbt community who's tired of having to face constant homophobia, transphobia, and other general bigotry in the stories our community tells. Of course telling stories of that pain is important, but this book manages to be authentic with its lgbt characters without containing potentially traumatic content that far too many of have faced irl, which is really nice when said content can send you into a depressive episode or is otherwise difficult to experience in media that contains it.

I'm so, so excited to continue this story in the next books!

Fantastic Listen

I was all in on this one. The pain of not living up to the family business of super powers. Definitely a hidden gem

I Was Too Harsh First Time Through

I was too critical of the book the first time, most of that is because I had just returned to reading/listening to published books and the one before this was my only reference point (that book I recognize now as a very long novel and not a good comparison because of the completely different genre). While there are many predictable points during it and some of the writing feels a bit shaky. I found myself enjoying it much more the second time. There are so many subtle hints about one particular thing that it's amazing that I missed it completely the first time through.

While I will admit the rest is predictable (as like with most comic book or superhero books and arcs), it is a good read and I think it will be one I will come back to again and again. As I wonder if there were other details that missed.