Book Descriptions
for Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
Jess Tran, 16 and daughter of C-Class superheroes Smasher and Shockwave (mild-mannered real estate agents in their daily lives), has shown no sign of developing meta-abilities. To distract herself from this disappointment, Jess gets an internship at a robotics company and discovers her secret crush, Abby Jones, also works there. More startling, the company is run by the Mischiefs, her town’s C-Class villains. Jess’s supervisor, M, wears the Mischief suit to maintain authority while the Mischiefs are away. M is so easy to talk to that Jess reveals her crush on Abby, who is, conveniently—or is that mysteriously?— always working elsewhere. Abby, of course, is M. She is also the daughter of the Mischiefs. The attraction between Jess and Abby is mutual, but then Abby reveals her parents have disappeared and she’s certain Captain Orion of the Heroes League of Superheroes, whom Jess has always adored, is behind it. An entertaining story set in 22nd-century North America following chemical warfare that activated latent human superpowers is fresh, funny, and original. It’s also to be continued. Chinese-Vietnamese Jess, daughter of immigrants, is bisexual in a future where a spectrum of sexuality and gender is accepted, while signs of xenophobia suggest a far-from-perfect world, one in which heroes and villains are not always easily defined. (Age 12 and older)
CCBC Choices 2017. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2017. Used with permission.
From the Publisher
"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."--
Publisher description retrieved from Google Books.