Donald, a Midwestern, African American geek gets struck by lightning, becomes a superhero, superhero things happen. Comics, and superhero books and movies are not my personal preference, but as a YA Librarian, I have selected this book for a number of reasons. 1. Superhero fiction, and prose adaptations of graphic novels are very popular right now. 2. This is a African American character written by an author of color. The world needs more of this, the YA community is demanding more of it. (See The Hate U Give, Children of Blood and Bone, etc.) 3. The whole book just seems very "real". Nothing in the story relies too heavily on tropes (except maybe the origin story) and Donald makes his messy inexperienced way through the story in a very relatable way.

Parts of the book come across as a little disjointed and need some polish. There are a lot of pop culture references and geek speak that may not stand the test of time. The story is also interrupted regularly by passages like "This is the Tale of the _____ ______ ______...." which would make for better chapter titles than it does as a way of developing prose.

All in all its a fun read that will resonate with teens, young adults, and super hero fans and an interesting first novel from an author with a unique perspective.

I never thought in a million years think I would enjoy a superhero novel. I wanted to read it when I came across it on NetGalley. I never read a superhero book before. This was amazing. The humor and snarky behavior was right up my alley. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I hope there are more to come! Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to review this!

Unique writing and story that kept me interested. A story that had me wanting to read more. Relatable characters and a good flow. Would recommend!

It was a fun take on super heroes with the tongue and cheek humor. The author is quite clever. This book appeals to those who grew up loving super heroes and are fond of meta fiction

A different kind of hero who manages to save the day while stumbling through life. The Black Spark accidentally becomes a super hero. He works hard to make life better for his community while still struggling through his everyday life. A story to make you smile.

It is an okay book for me. I really liked the cover and synopsis. But i have to keep force myself to read the story. It was definitely not a bad book. There are really great lines. I really liked the superhero theme and references. But something was missing for me.

It's certainly not a bad book, and I could see this being a hit with some readers, especially adults who grew up on tales of superheroes. The author is clearly quite clever, with a good selection of quotable lines and social commentary. However, I am not a fan of metafiction narrative and was unable to really get into the book, and wound up losing interest. .

I thought this sounded like a fun book - a different take on the superhero origination theme. Then I started reading it....some of the background I could understand and relate to - the nerd in school. The rest can be summed up in a couple of quotes: a) “My smoking habit could play as metaphor for any Black Power movement after the 80s: not fully committed, reluctantly active.”
b) “I’m aware that two more racially aimed comments will officially land this little memoir in the dusty African-American section of your local bookstore.” Unfortunately, it got to the point where most of the story seemed to be "racially aimed comments". After the umpteenth anti-white stereotype, I had to put it down. I get your experience is different than mine, but I wouldn't write this about other races. I read to escape the current acrimony in the world, not bring it into my library.

This is the tale of a man who got struck by lightning, and--you guessed it--got electro super powers. What is perhaps the least original origin story is woven into a story that is, funnily enough, quite original. It takes place in what I can only call the most accurate depiction of the world we live in today but with one single twist: superheroes. Which, oddly enough, happens to be a very large twist.

The main character, Donald, is the typical, struggling, American man. He’s stuck in a shitty job, he’s got 99 problems and most of them have to do with one particular girl, and he just happens to be a super… hero?

Eskew creates a world so scarily similar to our own, with its big ol’ issues and its great big beauties. It’s written in the style of a memoir which is super cool. It read like nonfiction other than the whole, you know, minor superhero thing. The voice that is created is eerily believable and the style through which the events are expressed makes everything seem as if it actually happened. The fake-memoir method of writing reminded me of “What We Do in the Shadows”. It’s a hilarious mockumentary about vampires in New Zealand that takes place in a realistic world but has a similar-ish paranormal twist to The Tales of the Astonishing Black Spark.

Donald’s voice is real and self aware. It hits on topics of racial inequality and raises questions about current racialized issues such as social justice campaigning in the modern world as well as how history idealized racial issues. These ideas shine through at two particularly powerful moments.*

a) “My smoking habit could play as metaphor for any Black Power movement after the 80s: not fully committed, reluctantly active.”
This is honestly the best line in the entire novel. A completely accurate and well founded nudge at the current state of social justice movements. Although this is aimed specifically at racial equality movements I do think it’s applicable to pretty much any civil rights campaign that we see in the media today.

b) “I’m aware that two more racially aimed comments will officially land this little memoir in the dusty African-American section of your local bookstore.”
This was a really witty remark that hit perfectly with my sense of humor. I think it’s ironic because although Eskew is kind of criticising this, because of how much race is brought up in the novel, the book may actually be deemed African-American literature.
And you bet your ass that there were faaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrr more than just two racially aimed comments that fell after this statement. So much so that it became excessive, repetitive, and, to be blunt, pretty damn annoying.

I could go on and on about the ideas that both these quotations raise but I don’t want this book review to turn into a statement on current social issues so I’ll leave it at that.

*Because these quotes are taken from an ARC it is not guaranteed that these will appear in this exact form (or at all) in the final released version of the novel.

There was also a training montage in this book which also gets a thumbs up from me. I love a good training montage and this one was pretty lit. Not quite Rocky Balboa lit, but lit all the same.

Eskew is constantly making points about the hypocrisy and ridiculousness of some aspects of culture, society, and religion through hyperbole and exaggeration. However, sometimes it goes from satirical and clever to a little bit too ridiculous, too unrealistic, and kinda (very) cringy. Tries to be a little bit too “down with the kids these days”. Reminds me of r/fellowkids. If you know what I’m talking about, bless your soul.

The book hops from the really mundane (something I don’t tend to enjoy reading about (this is why I don’t really read contemporary)) to super ridiculous crazy ass shit. It’s kind of cool and interesting but also jarring and abrupt, which isn’t great.

As I stated previously, the origin story of the fabled Black Spark is the most unimaginative shit I’ve ever read in my life. The unoriginality of it really disappointed me, especially because everything else about this book screams “fresh” and “new” and “current”. There are so many fun and decently plausible (well, actually not plausible at all considering that there is no such thing as super powers but let’s ignore that fact for the moment) ways he could have developed his powers. Like sticking a fork in a toaster, or acting out that one scene in Jurassic Park where the kid in on the electrocuted fence and he goes zap zap and even though I’m not explaining this well at all you know exactly what I’m talking about. Eskew really let me down on this one.

I wasn’t a huge fan of this book. I think, if handled with a little more tact, it could have been amazing. It brought up important topics and dealt with new and interesting ideas, but ultimately the repetitiveness and ridiculousness left me more than a little disappointed.

I've mixed feelings on this one... On one hand I liked the ironic, tongue-in-cheek "hero" - his voice was entertaining, his ups and downs were relatable, and he was funny. On the other, all of those things were also his greatest flaws, because they each felt like they were overused/over-relied upon in a way that started to feel repetitive and wore on me after a while. Still, there's a lot of very funny and fun (and spot-on, social commentary-wise) stuff going on and I found that a little careful and judicious skimming when things started feeling like I'd been there before kept me mostly in this one throughout my read...

Unfortunately, I didn’t quite manage to relate to this book ot its characters, maybe because of the slang, maybe because of the one too many murky comics references, maybe because of the insistence on using metafiction too often and using the same technique in almost all chapters (starting with a challenging situation and then going back to explain how he got there).
I should have liked it, as I enjoy humorous, ironic superheroes who make mistakes, talk to and make fun of themselves (see Deadpool for example), but something was off for me. Oh, and the ending was quite a mystery for me..

It has, though, lots of funny moments and a quite interesting story, so maybe check it out if the synopsis appeals to you.