Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book, as this book has already been published, I will not share my review on Netgalley at this time.

From the beginning it's clear that the author has experience with comics ND sci fi. Ordinarily that would be a turn off for me. However,, the MC saves the day. She struggles to find her way and empower herself. She is a complicated, sympathetic character.

Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC. This is my honest review.

Thank you, Fair Play Books, for allowing me to read Ever the Hero early.

Even though I liked the blurb, this is not my kind of book. I didn’t like the characters, the plot, and the overall story.

I couldn't follow anything that was happening for a lot of the story. I found it hard to connect to the characters, they felt one-dimensional and the story was lacking in world building.

This isn't my typical genre but enjoyed the book and will recommend it to others. I'm also eager to continue reading the series as the books are published.

Are you a fan of the “gays in space” YA genre? Do you enjoy “superheroes might be a bad idea actually” shows like Invincible? Then you might enjoy Ever the Hero!

I liked a lot of things about this book. The worldbuilding is fun and a lot of info about the world gets frontloaded in a way that piqued my interest right away. I dig the anti-capitalist angle and exploration of how discrimination against non-Empowered might intersect with other prejudices like sexism and classism.

Unfortunately, though, the human elements of Ever the Hero weren’t as strong as the worldbuilding. Kit is a bit of a frustrating character to read. There’s a lot of telling-not-showing about her personality and a lot of the telling is contradictory. She doesn’t feel fear … except when she does. She always says the wrong thing … but her dialogue doesn’t come off especially socially awkward. She struggled with internalized homophobia/biphobia as a teen … but anti-LGBTQ sentiment literally never comes up outside of one or two sentences of exposition. Toward the beginning of the book, I suspected Kit might be autistic-coded (which would have been exciting to see!), but that’s never really made explicit. I never really got a handle on Kit’s personality.

The telling-not-showing problem also extends to Kit’s relationship with Valene. Kit’s actions are driven by this profound love for Valene for the majority of the book, but as a reader I didn’t get to really see this love develop. Kit and Valene get together quickly toward the beginning of the book, then there’s a time jump, and then they spend most of the book physically separated and unable to communicate with one another. I wish there’d been more energy put into showing the reader how their relationship developed. As it was, I finished the book feeling like I didn’t understand what they saw in each other.

Despite these bumps, I liked the book overall and am looking forward to reading the sequel!

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Note: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.