Every YA bookseller should recommend this to their YA customers! Such a good read! It's action packed and witty with depth and originality and important themes. It could also be recommended to middle grade readers too.

Emma Robledo is determined to unmask the corruption by the government and the Heroes League of Heroes. Now that she and her friends have found the Resistance and the Villain’s Guild is supporting them, Emma is sure they finally are on their way to victory. But it turns out that things are far more difficult than she expected. The Sidekick Squad is separated, the adults in the Villain’s Guild are not really interest in taking action, and getting anyone to listen is not easy. Not to mention that as one of the few in the Resistance without powers, Emma finds herself frequently pushed off to the side by the team leadership. Whereas she used to be the planner, the one who figured out the strategies, now no one really takes her seriously.

Fortunately, Emma still has the support of her friends, particularly her best friend and boyfriend, Bells. But as much as Emma loves Bells, she can’t help a feeling uncertainty surrounding their relationship. She doesn’t seem to want the things the other kids at school want out of dating, and she isn’t quite sure what that means.

Slowly the Resistance starts making inroads, and Emma is determined to continue spreading word about the corruption. She knows that she is a good leader, whether she has powers or not. Now Emma is ready to take a stand in the fight and not let others push her aside. If they all work together, they have hope of exposing the corruption at the highest levels.

Not Your Backup is the third book in C.B. Lee’s excellent Sidekick Squad series. I choose this book for Diverse Books Week in our Reading Challenge Month because this book (and this series) is chock full of diverse representation at pretty much every level. The stories feature a host of characters of color, and a variety of gender identities and sexual orientations. I love that even the side characters are widely diverse, including a Muslim reporter and a poly threesome. I appreciate how Lee really incorporates such a wide range of diversity and it all flows so seamlessly in the story. This is particularly important in a young adult series like this one, and this is probably one of the most overall diverse series I have ever read.

In this third book, we continue the overarching storyline regarding the corrupt government and the Heroes League of Heroes. The truth comes out about what is going on in the previous book, and now Emma and her friends are determined to spread the word. The hallmark of this series for me continues to be the incredible world building and even three books in, there are such great little details that really making things shine. Everything from the technology they use, to the way the cities are built, to the politics, to the way the government is run is just so richly detailed, it just brings these books to life.

From a plot standpoint, I did feel that this one is somewhat slower than the others. This is a long book and there just didn’t seem like enough forward movement for this point in the series. While the group does start to make some progress toward the end, we finish the book not much further along than we started. There seems to be a lot of planning, moving from place to place, undertaking small missions, etc, and it just repeats throughout the story. The book opens with a really intense scene, and the ending does bring some more excitement again, but the middle just seemed to be a little flat after the intensity of the first two books. So this one suffered a little from “middle of the series” syndrome for me.

This story gives us a new POV with Emma as our lead character. While Not Your Villain focused on Bells, as well as his feelings for Emma, this book swaps perspectives on their relationship to give us Emma’s viewpoint. The story explores Emma’s awareness that she seems to view dating and relationships differently than most of her peers, and her growing understanding that she is likely both asexual and aromantic. There is a particularly nice scene where Emma talks to Bells’ brother, as he indefinites similarly, and he helps her to sort out her feelings. Finding stories that features asexual characters is rare enough, but aromantic ones as well really makes this one unique. I particularly loved that Lee explores this in a young adult book.

Even though Emma is not sure she has sexual or romantic feelings for Bells, she still loves him and wants to continue a relationship with him. While the relationship is not at the forefront of this story, I think that works great here as most of this book is about Emma finding herself in her role as a leader, as a human without powers, and in her sexual identity. I do wish we had a little more of Bells involved in the discussion as Emma focuses on what what her sexual/romantic identity means for their relationship, however. The previous book deals with Bells’ feelings for Emma, and so I would have liked to see them explore more together what Emma’s feelings mean for them as a couple, particularly since they are continuing their relationship.

Overall, this series is really outstanding. It is rich with diversity, wonderful world building, and great characters. I do feel like the plot stalled a little too much here, but the book left me eager to see how things all play out as the series continues. I’ll definitely be following along.

Unfortunately, I did not get. the chance to read this ARC prior to its release--I'm hoping to work through my backlist now that we're home for the coming weeks!--but we did end up buying this book for the library collection.

These continue to be fun and I think this one really showed how both the series and CB Lee have grown since the first book.

Once again I am a million and a half years late to the game. I blame it all on library school. This was such a refreshing read after slogging through long text books. The writing was once again fast paced and something I enjoy from this author. I went into this book not quite sure about how it would be to see the relationship from a different side after Bell's book. It ended up being well done and not feeling very odd to me at all. I enjoyed seeing everyone from Emma's point of view. All in all i really enjoyed this book and can't wait for the next one in the series.

I've been a fan of the Sidekick Squad since the first book, so getting to read this third part was exciting!

Following Emma this time, the book focuses mainly on her relationship with Bells and not having powers and being in the Squad/Resistance. I appreciate having a book with an ace protagonist, I think it was great how they dealt with it and how Emma questions it. It's amazing, and I'm glad this book exists because it's a much needed thing.

It's hard not to love this series more and more with each installment, but here we are. It's fast paced, its funny and just a feel good series. And what made this book so special to me was Emma, who I was excited to follow after learning she was ace. And as an a-spec reader, it felt SO GOOD seeing ace rep done well and the aromantic representation?? Specifically the questioning rep?? Felt so personal to me. The conversations she had about it and the message that "you're valid" just, hit me differently.

This book was light, easy and fun - a good read for middle grade readers. But a good pick up for adults as well. it explores its themes very well and I enjoyed reading this.

If you’ve been following my blog for a couple years you know how much I adore THE SIDEKICK SQUAD, I started up loving Not you Sidekick and then fell more in love with this series through Bells’ perspective in Not your Villain. So imagine my delight when I got accepted to be part of the blog tour for Not you Backup, the next installment I’ve been eagerly waiting on for the past two years, especially since we discover at the end of the second book that Emma, the main character in this one, is aroace questioning.

The writing is simple (in a good way), flows very smoothly and matches the fun but still serious tone of the book perfectly, just like with its predecessors. Although I must say that with each book, I’ve loved Lee’s writing a bit more, so this one was my favourite in that aspect. Not your Backup picks up right after the events of Not your Villain with Emma & our superheros regrouping in a safe house and trying to get as many people to join the resistance as they can, from Emma’s perspective of course, and what makes her different is that whereas our two previous protagonists have powers, Emma is absolutely and completely normal.

And…I loved that. It was really refreshing to see that even without having any extraordinary abilities, Emma was irreplaceable for the team. This books shows that anyone can make a change if only they put their mind to it. Emma is a born leader, strong, fierce, outspoken and not afraid to take charge and tell people who needs to do what, and make them listen to her without them feeling like she’s bossing them around. Like any good leader really. In the past two books, we see Emma as this super popular, confident and bubbly latinx girl who is smart, charismatic, flirty and can make friends easily. But in this book that’s all about her, we see that there’s more to her than what meets the eye, a whole other side of her that is mostly inside her brain. She’s a perfectionist who’s quite hard on herself and absolutely hates failure. But what makes up a non negligible part of this book is the fact that she’s aroace questioning.

And as an aromantic spectrum person, I found that exploration incredibly well done. Granted, I haven’t read many books with aromantic representation, but out of the few I’ve read, this one was the closest to my own experiences and thought processes. Not a perfect match, but the questioning part was spot on. I saw so much of the girl I was a couple years ago in Emma, the girl who didn’t really feel comfortable in romantic relationships, like an ill fitting jacket (a comparison made in the book as well), the girl who wondered more than once if anything was wrong with her because I just couldn’t make myself stay feel comfortable and stay long in relationships because they became at some point things I dreaded.

I’m getting a bit personal but all of this to say that Emma was, in many ways, me. And I will forever cherish this book for that. I cannot speak on the ace representation but it was handled in the same ways the aro rep was so I’m assuming it’s great as well. Because it not only allowed Emma to explore her feelings and orientation, it also made space for people across the aroace spectrum to feel seen and welcome through a conversation Emma has with Bells’ brother, the gist of which was that no matter where you are in the spectrum you’re valid.

Now I want to talk about the one thing that bugged me about the book, and that unfortunately made it my least favourite in the series (still pretty good though, OKAY? READ THE SERIES!). It’s the fact that this very much felt like a filler book. It had a good start and a phenomenal ending but the middle of it just…dragged for me, and not much happened through it. Which is understandable because Emma is kind if shut out but that doesn’t make for the most entertaining reading material, especially with how fast paced the two previous installments were, it was quite a drastic change. There was a lot of waiting around, driving long distances and trying to get people to agree on a plan in this book.

That being said, the discussions on socio-political issues were better than ever. I know I was just complaining but I really liked seeing the Resistance grow and gain more ground even while they struggle and hit some road blocks. I loved the continuing discussion on good vs evil that started in Not Your Villain. And I also loved seeing how easily governments can twist the truth, or hide, or manipulating to fit their agenda and still look innocent to the public eye. Because that’s kinda terrifying and happening in quite a few places around the world as we speak, and how even though a majority pick up on that manipulation, not everyone does and those people who keep believing in corrupt people in power can stir trouble.

We didn’t see much of the other characters since they were separated more often than not, besides Bells. Who’s forever the national treasure he was set up to be in the previous book. He loves and supports Emma so unconditionally and just wants her to be happy and safe and AAAHHH! He’s so amazing. Still my favourite character in the series. I also want to mention something, without wanting to be presumptuous, Abby, who was the love interest in Not you Sidekick and will be the main character in Not you Hero (the 4th book) seems to be going through a manic episode. The word in never used as no one really knows what going on with her, but all the signs are there and I’m fairly curious to how that will play out and be handled in the book that’s all about her.

This series is so so good and so so diverse and rich and timely while still being fun, funny and quick to read, and on the lighter sci-fi side. So I’d recommend anyone who’s looking for that to read it. And I honestly cannot wait to continue on with it ESPECIALLY WITH HOW THIS ONE ENDED!!

Another great entry in the Sidekick Squad series. With the odds stacked against our heroes, they still fight for what's right.

Really liked this book! It's a nice, light read. It's not only great for middle school readers but for older readers too

This entire series is a gift, and this third volume hits close to home for me, as it is the first time I have seen characters discuss queerplatonic relationships. With the background of superpower shenanigans and everlasting friendship, the protagonist leads her heart and her Resistance the best she can.

IN SUMMARY: A solid improvement over the other SIDEKICK SQUAD books, NOT YOUR BACKUP details Emma Robledo's antics as a ordinary human in an extraordinary world. A diverse, fun, and vibrant novel.

MY THOUGHTS:

Emma is a compelling narrator. I enjoyed her voice, her thoughts, her arc. Everything. I may be biased given I identify on the a-spectrum myself, but her questioning in regards to her identity is done thoroughly and with care, so I'm glad that it was just the fact that Emma wasn't given enough space to elaborate on her identity was the sole cause of the iffy ace/aro rep of NOT YOUR VILLAIN.

It was also nice to see the relationships between Emma and the other characters expanded, despite Jess and Abby being absent for most of this adventure. I particularly liked Emma and Bells exploring their relationship/ romance with one another. It ended nicely as well, tying into Emma's internal character development.

Being an ARC, I can't comment on minor mistakes that will (hopefully) be fixed by publishing, but I can comment on the strange OTT style of the writing. In NOT YOUR SIDEKICK and NOT YOUR VILLAIN, it seemed like the prose was janky and incoherent at times, but now it's too much, too nit-picky about everything. There's a constant repetition of Emma's name when a simple she will do, for example.

That said, a huge improvement from the first two books overall. It's almost like they read my reviews and took on board everything I said, lol.

It wasn't without it's flaws, however. As usual, some things just happen to go the right way for our intrepid hero Emma. She gets imprisoned by a bad guy in this one, right? Good thing her door guard is so incompetent he'll forget he left Emma's dinner tray behind so she can knock him out with it! They're surrounded by evil robots? Good thing Abby just happens to have an EMP in her pocket! Lost in a snowy wasteland searching for a person no one else has found in a hundred years? Good thing Emma stumbles across her almost immediately!

I just wanted to roll my eyes. Victories aren't earned if they're just handed to the protagonist. There is no struggles or smarts coming into play to overcome the obstacle.

WILL I READ ON? Yes! I'm hyped for NOT YOUR HERO next year! Also, calling it: the cover is a shade of blue.

5 reasons why I love the Sidekick Squad series

The political system

I’m always a sucker for a good political system in a book/series, but if a book has a corrupt political systems and people have to overthrow it I’m there for it all the way. I know we’ve had a lot of this in the The Hunger Games and The Divergent days, but I can truly never get enough of it, because there’s so many ways you can go with it, and The Sidekick Squad definitely has a unique approach.

The way that it involved the superheroes and villains, the league… I was HOOKED.

The characters

The characters in the Not Your Sidekick series are all my babies. They’re so wonderful and I love being able to spend some time in their head, and then seeing them from another character’s POV in another book. I just… I’m trying to find words to describe how much or even why I love them so much but I don’t think I have words that do them justice. I just love them. A whole lot.

The relationships

The romantic relationships in this series are extremely cute and will leave you swooning for days, but something that I especially love are the friendships. I love a good friendship group, and the sidekick squad is definitely that. They’re extremely supportive, loving, have a lot of fun together, and truly want the best for each other and are constantly looking out for each other. They’re like a little found family, which is my favorite trope of all time so of course I loved this, too.

The unapologetic queerness

Jess from Not Your Sidekick is bisexual, Bells from Not Your Villain is a trans guy, and Emma from Not Your Backup is aroace. Besides this, there are lots of other side characters who are queer, and in this world it’s the most normal thing ever, which made me so happy. Every time someone casually mentioned “my wife” or “my dads” my heart soared a little.

And besides the fact that I love how subtle but out there some of the queerness is, I also love how the representation of the queerness of the main characters is handled. I can’t speak on Bell’s representation, but I absolutely loved the bi rep in Not Your Sidekick, and the aroace rep in Nor Your Backup is one of the best I’ve ever seen. It’s nuanced, and it’s one of the first books I’ve read that acknowledges that sexual and romantic attraction are separate things, and also mentions queerplatonic relationships!

The world

Besides the fact that the world is incredibly queer, there’s many other things to love about it! The world is set in the future and all of the little technological advances are fascinating, I loved reading about the new cities and the unmaintained areas (especially in Not Your Backup, when they were roadtripping through huge parts of it and came across old abandoned towns) and I especially love the idea of the (this might be a spoiler, oops) illegal underground farming.

This series has some of the best diversity and representation I’ve ever read, but unfortunately, this was my least favorite installment. I just felt like the plot was all over the place - particularly in the last third,

Among other things, the Sidekick Squad series delves into the question of what makes one a hero. Emma’s story provides a fresh perspective because unlike the previous protagonists and POV characters in the series, Jess and Bells, Emma does not have meta-human superpowers. Despite attempts by others to keep her on the sidelines and in the background, Emma is determined to do as much as she can to contribute to the Resistance and be a leader in her own right. The obstacles she faces both external and internal in striving toward this goal create a compelling, character-driven narrative.

For me, Not Your Backup strikes a great balance between bigger picture conflict and themes and the personal, individual story of a character who at the end of the day is just a teenage girl trying to find her place in the world and in the web of relationships surrounding her. The larger-than-life aspects of the story are grounded by Emma’s very human struggles with perfectionism, self-confidence, negotiation of agency in an environment where she has less power, and sorting out what she wants from her interpersonal relationships, particularly her new role as Bells’ girlfriend.

To comment more on that last bit: Emma is specifically questioning her place on the asexual and aromantic spectrums and the implications of her relationship with Bells and how it has changed now that they are dating. As an aroace-spec reader, I found the depictions of her struggles relatable and affirming and was particularly excited to see the word “queerplatonic” used explicitly in the text. I think one of the best things about Not Your Backup is that it provided Emma with a supportive environment to question and explore her feelings of/about attraction. The author is careful with not reinforcing notions of a-spec people as a monolith but rather highlighting the diversity of experiences in the community. Moreover, consent and boundaries are respected at every turn in Emma’s relationship with Bells, something that is so important and sadly not as prominent/normalized in YA as it should be.

To summarize, Not Your Backup is a book that I wish teen me had, not only because Emma’s perfectionism is so relatable but also because it likely would have helped teen me realize I was on the aroace spectrum and made me feel less alone and broken for not experiencing attraction the same way other people did.

actual rating: 3.5

As with the second book in this series, I just felt that this book moved a little bit slower than I would have liked [although at least here we don't spend a third of the book doing a recap, which I why I rounded up instead of down]. I guess I just feel like the characters should have made more progress at this point [something that Emma and I seem to have in common], but I suppose it kind of makes sense for the first three books to take their time a bit more and focus on the POV characters over plot development. Don't get me wrong, there is still plenty that is happening here, but I am kind of wondering where it's all going and how long the whole series will be. I did absolutely love the frank discussion of Emma being aro/ace and all the different ways she could adapt that label though. I am aro/ace myself and you very rarely see characters in fiction that are both [most seem to just be ace], so it always makes me happy to see such a cool character that uses that label.

Not Your Backup is the third book in the Sidekick Squad series and it is honestly probably my favorite of them all.


Not Your Backup CoverEmma Robledo has a few more responsibilities that the usual high school senior, but then again, she and her friends have left school to lead a fractured Resistance movement against a corrupt Heroes League of Heroes. Emma is the only member of a supercharged team without powers, and she isn’t always taken seriously. A natural leader, Emma is determined to win this battle, and when that’s done, get back to school. As the Resistance moves to challenge the League, Emma realizes where her place is in this fight: at the front. (Goodreads)
Goodreads



I received an eARC of Not Your Backup courtesy of The Quiet Pond’s book tour in exchange for an honest review.
Not Your Backup need trigger warnings for internal shame about asexual and aromantic questioning, science-fiction violence, government tracking and discussion of non-consensual medical experiments.

I listened to the first two books on audio, which I highly recommend. When I heard that Lee was getting into aromantic and asexual rep, I knew I needed to get in on the ground floor for this one. And wow, did she do a super job. (Pun intended. You’re welcome.)

Not Your Backup is a much quieter novel than Not Your Sidekick and Not Your Villain, despite the fact that it is still action packed. It’s all about Emma Robledo figuring out who she is, where she belongs in the resistance, and in her own skin. She doesn’t have superpowers at all, but she is a brilliant strategist. However, many of the older folks in this novel don’t take her seriously because she has no powers.

This, along with struggling to understand and categorize her relationship with her best friend and boyfriend Bells, leads to a lot of internal struggle for Emma while they’re trying to save the world from an evil government.

Speaking of the aromantic and asexual representation, can I just say I absolutely loved how it was handled? The practice of having someone else who identifies similarly on the page talk to our main character and helping her figure it out? I loved it so much. It’s something that we get to see a lot with other queer characters, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it for ace folks.

I can’t wait for Not Your Hero, even though I know it’ll be a long time coming. In the meantime, you need to pick up a copy of Not Your Backup as soon as you can. You can do that through Amazon, Indiebound or The Book Depository.

he Sidekick Squad is back, this time with the focus on Emma Robledo, the defacto leader of the Sidekicks. She's a genius, but as the only member of the Sidekicks that doesn't have any powers, she is often regulated to the back up role. Emma is determined to get the Resistance movement against the League of Heroes on track.

There's a ton of stuff packed here in this book, from the socio-political commentary, all the Sidekicks being part of the LGBT+ community, and what it means to be a superhero. I enjoyed all of it, and it is super accessible for anyone who likes a good action book with heart. I didn't get a chance to read book two, but I thought this book was a more complete one than Not Your Sidekick.

Each of the books focuses on the members of the squad and this time with Emma as the narrator, we get a look at a person coming to terms with her aromantic/ asexuality. There's a lot of internal debate that parallels her feelings about being a part of a superhero squad and her own sexual identity. It's very thoughtful, and is huge for representation of ace/ aro characters. Emma was probably my favorite character of book 1, and this arc solidifies it for me. She's just a solid character all around, and I'm glad we got a story from her perspective.

This is a fun, easy to read YA novel that has a lot to say. It does so with warmth and care. Oh, and there's a hefty dose of superhero action mixed in, too. The series tends to fly under the radar for YA LGBT books because it is published by a small publishing house, so I try to get the word out about it as much as possible. Recommended.

3,5 stars

The third book in the Sidekick Squad already. Not Your Backup is yet another fun installment. I will say that this book had its positive and negative for me which made me not quite love it. Even though I wish I could because it has so much important bits in it.

Let’s start with the positive. In this story Emma is our main character. One I didn’t care too much for in the previous two installments. However once you get into her head in this book a lot of things just fall into place more about who she is and what she struggles with. You see Emma is asexual. This is something that she struggles with throughout the book in that she is in search of what that means for her and her relationship with Bells. Especially that aspect. I can’t tell you how important it is to see this in a book. It showed the variations of asexuality, including all of them. It made me realize that I am on the ace spectrum. (Can you imagine what it would do to teens to read this and realize they aren’t alone?) And at the end Emma hasn’t figured everything out. In such a short time frame, who can? But that also makes it realistic.

Jumping onto the rest of the characters, the Sidekick Squad are such gems. I love Bells forever. He is such a cinnamon roll and so respectful of Emma, her wishes and her struggles. He is fine with whatever way that she wants him with her. Jess and Abby, oh gosh. Much love there too. I can’t wait for a bit more focus on those two.

Having said that I found the plot a lot slower than the previous two. A lot of that had to do with Emma, as she is a very different character (and the only one without powers) and a lot of things happened in her head and in interactions instead of the big action. Which is fine, but it also stalled a bit in the middle there. Not all of the decisions made a 100% sense, especially at the end there. That just got thrown at us. And I got kind of annoyed with the constant ‘Abby isn’t doing so well’ but not getting any answers on that.

Even so I do think this book and its series is still very much worth a read just for the rep and characters alone.