While I think the book started off strong, and by strong I mean embarrassingly horrifically took-me-four-days-to-get-past-chapter 1 teenage hormone riddled mess, the book definitely suffers from second-book syndrome. While I appreciate some of the directions this book goes in—Aaron has to reconcile his time on the police, Nick has powers that were pretty heavily implied in book 1—there were many directions that I didn't fully understand. I liked that all of the adults in the crew knew what was going on, but the fact that Seth reveals himself to the public is... a choice. 

While I like the fact that this book plays with a lot of the superhero tropes, I wasn't a fan of how quickly they disregarded the "secret identity" part of the trope. Not because I'm a fan of the whole angsty "there's something going on I can't tell you about" trope, just for practicality's sake. The other thing I didn't like I'll talk about at the end of this review, because it's the major spoiler at the end of the book. 

While I very much appreciated the introduction of new extraordinaries, I felt this boog lagged a lot compared to the first. The fight scenes weren't as interesting (I also felt like the author couldn't keep track of what had happened to the characters. There were a lot of chokings/head injuries that were completely "healed" 3 sentences later), I felt the stakes weren't as high, the villains not as compelling—the classic second book in a trilogy. Without the last reveal I'd give it 4 stars, but I'm really nervous about that which brought it down to 3.

4/5 I CAN'T BELIEVE HE ACCIDENTALLY BLUETOOTHED SUPERHERO PORN TO HIS DAD'S CAR
 

 

So the fact that Jenny is alive really disturbs me. With all the grief and the pain that both Nick and Aaron went through was for nothing. Because it was a cliffhanger reveal, we don't get to see any ramifications of this, but I really don't know how Klune can do this without making Jenny evil. There are very few things that are narratively unforgivable in my opinion, and because Nick and Aaron's grief was so central to the story, telling me now it was all for nothing is deeply unsettling.

I was hoping it was a secret uncle, like Jenny had a brother or something or my other guess was Officer Rookie. 

I think the only way Jenny could be redeemed is if she was a clone or something. But there is absolutely no excuse for her to know about Nick and Aaron and stay away.

Her death is the reason Seth even wanted to use his extraordinary powers to be a superhero. Her death informs Nick's trauma and Aaron's career. Saying it was all for nothing is a huge slap in the face, and I'm honestly kind of mad about it. 

On one hand, a dead parent or two is like the quintessential superhero backstory. So I don't mind playing with tropes as this book often does. But you can't change your mind after you established it unless you have a really good reason. And I'm worried whatever reason he gives won't be good enough.