Dreadnought was so much fun! Danny is the newest superhero after she witnesses Dreadnought die and he passes on his mantle to her. But her immediate reaction is that she finally has the body that she wants! A girl body! Danny is transgender, but has been keeping it to herself, because there's no way that her parents would understand or accept her. Now, she looks the way she's always wanted to look and everyone will see her the way she wants to be seen. And, oh yeah, she has amazing superpowers but no one can know about those.

I adored Danny! She's a very different type of heroine that I'm use to. She doesn't do this "woe is me, and I can't do this" moaning and groaning when faced with a problem. But she's also not the overly confident heroine who can do anything and everything and always come out on top. She knows for sure who she is and that is wonderful! She's not going to let anyone take that away from her. She also wants to help people and does her best with her new, untried powers. She messes up, gets hurt, doesn't mind asking for help, and generally felt believable. And she never gives up. She might not be sure how a situation will turn out, but she goes for it! No more hiding!

The pacing of Deadnought was a bit uneven though. It's almost as if it's in two parts, but I enjoyed both of them immensely. The first half or so is mostly about Danny coming into her new body. She's so excited about it! Her father is not, and he says some very cruel things to her. Yes, Danny is hurt by it, but she presses on. She goes to school with her head held high and she smiles. Her supposed best friend takes her new body as his chance to finally have a girlfriend, but Danny puts him in his place and I applaud her for that! Plus, she's gay. Danny even stands up to the rest of the superheros when they don't all accept her the way she is! You go, girl!

Then the second half of Dreadnought is where all of the action is. Danny teams up with Calamity, a kind of vigilante, to stop the supervillain who killed the previous Dreadnought. Maybe having two teenage girls go after an unknown enemy isn't the best idea, but they're smart and figure things out. That's not to say that things go smooth, because they definitely do not! But it was all very fun and exciting and heartstopping! The villain is very interesting.

Overall, I really enjoyed Dreadnought. The world-building is pretty good, and I adored our heroine and Calamity. I especially loved that ending and cannot wait for more!

Trans teens who feel they have to hide it–for any reason–have it tough, both in our present, and in the world author April Daniels builds for us. Danny Tozer has been hiding it for some time; her parents think she’s a boy, but she’s not. Her one guilty pleasure is painted toenails, and one fine afternoon she’s painting her toenails in a hidey-hole near the mall, when a superhero battle happens nearby. One of the finest heroes of his time, Dreadnought, is slain, and falls to the ground near Danny, and his mantle passes to her. She wakes soon after, stunned to find herself with the body she’s always dreamed of living in.

What follows is a fun, engaging adventure story, complete with all the bells and whistles: a suitably nasty villain, a newfound sidekick friend, a well-organized “cape” community taken aback by this upstart youngster, and a little bit of almost-comic treatment of our heroine’s parents, who simply cannot accept that their child has been suddenly placed in a young woman’s body, and could possibly be happy about it. She has to sneak away from them to spend time exploring her new powers and body, and spends time being heroic with her new sidekick Calamity, who turns out to be a classmate of hers from high school. Soon, they are hot on the trail of the previous Dreadnought’s killer, and discover that her nefarious grand plan must be stopped!

Escape Rating: A-. Underneath the rollicking adventure, of course, is a coming-into-your-own story for our young heroine, now calling herself Danielle. She has to cope with parents who blindly cannot accept what is right in front of their faces, insisting that they want to help her set things “right,” to become the man she’s supposed to be. If her abusive father’s rantings weren’t such a one-note song, it would be almost comic. But there’s a very un-funny part to this, too. For many trans youth, this kind of treatment is an unfortunate reality, and transkids in our universe don’t have superhero work to fall back on!

Danielle also has to cope with the Legion Pacifica, the organization of superheroes in New Port City. They must come to grips with the loss of their friend, who was a great hero, and at the same time, help this newcomer who holds his mantle understand her powers, and learn to use them for good. One member is simply unaccepting of Danielle’s transgender status, and insists on calling her by her old name and pronouns. Again, here we have a case of art imitating life, as transpeople in our universe have to deal with the same thing just about all the time.

Author April Daniels gives us a peek into the life of a trans youth that rings completely true, so I was unsurprised to discover that she is herself a transwoman. This authenticity is something I find too-often missing in fiction about transgender people, so Daniels’ work is a refreshing, beautiful change. She handles Danielle’s gender transition, and her coming into herself as a lesbian, with a straightforward, simple style without being lurid in any way. The story is completely appropriate for any YA reader, and I would give it a strong recommendation for any LGBTQ youth in your own life, as it shows a teen who is more like them, dealing with some of the same struggles they are–while still giving us a just-plain-fun power-up fantasy.

One down note for me was the treatment of Danielle’s struggle with her parents. I would have liked to see some closure to that. At the end of the book, there’s still something left hanging there–she’s not reconciled to them, nor have they completely shut her out. Perhaps that story will be completed in the upcoming sequel, which I’m looking forward to seeing!

~ Danny Tozer has a problem: she just inherited the powers of Dreadnought, the world’s greatest superhero. Until Dreadnought fell out of the sky and died right in front of her, Danny was trying to keep people from finding out she’s transgender. But before he expired, Dreadnought passed his mantle to her, and those secondhand superpowers transformed Danny’s body into what she’s always thought it should be. Now there’s no hiding that she’s a girl.

It should be the happiest time of her life, but Danny’s first weeks finally living in a body that fits her are more difficult and complicated than she could have imagined. Between her father’s dangerous obsession with “curing” her girlhood, her best friend suddenly acting like he’s entitled to date her, and her fellow superheroes arguing over her place in their ranks, Danny feels like she’s in over her head.

She doesn’t have time to adjust. Dreadnought’s murderer ⎯a cyborg named Utopia⎯ still haunts the streets of New Port City, threatening destruction. If Danny can’t sort through the confusion of coming out, master her powers, and stop Utopia in time, humanity faces extinction.
I received an eARC of Dreadnought courtesy of the publisher, Diversion Books, and Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review!

This book had a lot of things I love - superheroes, a struggle with identity, magic - but it also had a lot of things that were really difficult for me, as a cis woman to read. This is what's called an "own voices" book - the author and the main character are both trans women.

I want to give a warning before I get any further into this review. There was a lot of transphobia in this book, from the character's parents, friend, and a fellow whitecape. There's a ton of slurs used, some unwanted medical procedures and if this is something that's gonna trigger you, I'd advise you avoid this book.

I loved Danny as a protagonist. She felt entirely real to me, even when she was using figuring out her superpowers to get away from her family. I loved the friendship that she developed throughout the book with Calamity, and with Doc Impossible.

"IT'S FOR SCIENCE."
"NO."
"PLEASE?"
"YOU ARE GOING TO BUY ME PIZZA."
"DEAL."
"A LOT OF PIZZA."

I liked this quote, and the exchange, but I have some concerns about the Doc's treatment of Danny when she was having her physical with the Legion. I get that Doc's a scientist, but the surprise strychnine and radioactive stuff bothered me, and not just because of what happens after the physical is done. Danny had literally just gotten finished being poked and prodded by dozens of "baseline" doctors at her dad's request, and even with a funny doctor, it's still another invasion. I don't know if it bothered anyone else, but it bothered me.

I also thought there could have been a little more explanation of the hypertech & fancy machinery. Danny's family is broke - I'd bet she'd never seen some of it which would have made an easy excuse to explain everything.

The action scenes were awesome, the dialogue was realistic, and I loved that Danny was eventually able to escape her parents. I was intrigued by the superhero stuff, which I wasn't sure I'd like. I look forward to reading the rest of the series, to learn more about Calamity and the Legion, and any new heroes & villains we'll eventually meet!

This was a four star read for me, and I highly recommend it, as long as you're careful with your own mental state while you read. You can pick up a copy through Amazon, Indiebound or your other favorite bookseller!

four stars and one empty one meant to signify a four star review

~ April Daniels was born in a military hospital just before it was shut down for chronic malpractice—in hindsight, that should have been an omen. After various tribulations in childhood and the frankly disconcerting discovery that she was a girl, she graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in literature, and then promptly lost her job during the 2008 stock crash and recession. After she recovered from homelessness, she completed her first manuscript by scribbling a few sentences at a time between calls while working in the customer support department for a well-known video game console. This book was mainly porn, with a few sword fights included for variety. When April realized she couldn’t pitch her book without blushing, she decided to write something else. During yet another period of unemployment, she wrote Dreadnought.

She has a number of hobbies, most of which are boring and predictable. As nostalgia for the 1990s comes into its full bloom, she has become ever more convinced that she was born two or three years too late and missed all the good stuff the first time around. Having recently become a pagan, April is currently enduring the karmic backlash for all the times she was smug about her atheism.

Early in her writing practice, April set her narrative defaults to “lots of lesbians” and never looked back.
Disclaimer: All links to Indiebound and Amazon are affiliate links, which means that if you buy through those links, I will make a small amount of money off of it.

On the one hand I like superhero origin stories and complex worlds that include superpowers. This novel includes many of those elements, including complex characters with varied motivations. On the other hand, this book has a clear platform and agenda, a message that can be a bit overly blunt at times. BU the end of the novel Daniels has cut her complex and varied cast down to a small handful, characters killed off with little development of reason.