How To Date A Super Hero

Super Adjacent by Crystal Cestari

Publication Date: March 17, 2020

Summary from NetGalley:

Claire has always wanted to work with superheroes, from collecting Warrior Nation cards as a kid to drafting “What to Say to a Hero” speeches in her diary. Now that she’s landed a coveted internship with the Chicago branch of Warrior Nation, Claire is ready to prove she belongs, super or not. But complicating plans is the newest WarNat hero, Girl Power (aka Joy), who happens to be egotistical and self-important . . . and pretty adorable.
Bridgette, meanwhile, wants out of WarNat. After years of dating the famous Vaporizer (aka Matt), she’s sick of playing second, or third, or five-hundredth fiddle to all the people-in-peril in the city of Chicago. Of course, once Bridgette meets Claire-who’s clearly in need of a mentor and wingman-giving up WarNat becomes slightly more complicated. It becomes a lot more complicated when Joy, Matt, and the rest of the heroes go missing, leaving only Claire and Bridgette to save the day.

In this fresh and funny take on the world of supers, author Crystal Cestari spotlights what it’s like to be the seemingly non-super half of a dynamic duo with banter-filled romance and bold rescues perfect for readers seeking a great escape.

ARC provided by Disney-Hyperion via NetGalley for an honest review.

There was much to like about this book, but there were also a few things that I really didn’t like. It was a fun and pretty fast read, with a lot of heart and two main characters that most people will be able to relate too.

What I Liked

• The juxtaposition of the two narrator’s story lines. Claire is just beginning her relationship with a superhero and Bridgette is four years in and wondering if it is all worth it.
• The budding romance between Claire and Joy. They were really sweet together and I was pulling for them to get together.
• The fact that the story is told by two people who do not have super powers, but are affected by that world on a daily basis.
• There were some pretty funny bits, like when they first reveal Joy’s superhero costume and Claire points out that she can’t actually fight in it. Or like when Bridgette talks about how she has lost count of the number of times she has been kidnapped.
• The emotional toll of always being in the public’s eye through news and social media. I like that we got to see it from a super fan’s point of view (Claire) and through someone who constantly lives with the hate (Bridgette)
• I also really liked the realistic nature of Bridgette’s and Matt’s relationship and that it didn’t get wrapped up with a happy ending, but rather a hopeful one.

What I didn’t like

• The whole mystery of who was behind the kidnappings and other evil things that were happening in the background, just didn’t work for me. I knew who it was almost instantly even with all of the red herrings that kept getting tossed at the reader along the way.
• I really did not like Joy’s super hero name: Girl Power. Really?! Anything else would have been better than that!
• It wasn’t super important to the story, but it might have helped the plot a little bit if we had been given a bit more history on Warrior Nation, how the superheroes get their powers and how they get selected to be in Warrior Nations. It might have helped explain the villain’s motive a bit better.

Final Thoughts

This was a fun and light read. It is a more character driven story with the emphasis on what it was like being in a relationship with someone who is in the public eye almost constantly. The emphasis on friendship and family was also nice to see along with the romance and a little bit of adventure thrown in.