"Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong. Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?"
After a month long hiatus, I finally got back into reading with the help of this book. I saw that it was pretty popular in the booktube community, so I was like, well what the heck, might as well give it a go. And ya not gonna lie, it was pretty entertaining! The cover is a bit misleading though, it made me think the setting would be a lot more futuristic and science-fiction-y, but naahh it was set in a present day world, and actually wasn't futuristic, like. At all. Still really great though, not like I was disappointed by that or anything. It was really cool actually because the setting was so genuine and true to reality that the "extraordinary" abilities possessed by some of the characters were totally believable. Then something else I also really enjoyed about this book was the set up of the chapters. Each chapter took to you into a different point in time, and at the beginning everything was quite confusing and all over the place with all the different information, but as the story went along, things began to come together. This made it really interesting to read, and kept me motivated and intrigued to read more to see how things would connect. Pretty awesome.
I'm about to get into some spoilers, so if anyone is reading this who hasn't read the book, then you've been warned, lol. I think the most interesting part of this story to read is the processes by which Victor and Eli became "ExtraOrdinary." I really appreciated the attempt at a scientific explanation behind the change, and that's probably one of the reasons this book came off as so genuine and believable. Superheroes and super human abilities usually, at least for me, take a story into the realm of fantasy or paranormal, which is great because I love those genres, but always leaves me with the notion that they're not real, and that they're just stories. But this book is unique in that it felt as if it could be real, that people could actually use science to become "extraordinary." So ya, that was pretty sweet. But while on the topic of superheroes, I also loved how Scwhab dealt with that topic. None of actions of the characters in this book could be described as heroic by any means, but the characters certainly have the abilities you'd see in typical comic book super-heroes. They're all quite soulless, and don't feel any emotions, and that all ties in with the means by which they obtain their abilities, which gives the book a great touch.
Sooo yaaa, overall I really enjoyed reading this book! It's kind of like, an X-men, non-fiction crime retelling, drama-sort-of-thing. If that makes any sense. Which it doesn't. LOL. The writing flowed smoothly, the plot got going right away, and with the whole chapter-time-switching thing, it really made for a speedy read. I dare say too speedy though, because I would have liked it even better if there was more. I think if it had been a bit longer, and went a little slower, it would have been absolutely perfect! So with that being said, I give this book a solid 4/5 stars. Really great, super cool, blah blah, yuh know.
Feelings when I finished the book:
After a month long hiatus, I finally got back into reading with the help of this book. I saw that it was pretty popular in the booktube community, so I was like, well what the heck, might as well give it a go. And ya not gonna lie, it was pretty entertaining! The cover is a bit misleading though, it made me think the setting would be a lot more futuristic and science-fiction-y, but naahh it was set in a present day world, and actually wasn't futuristic, like. At all. Still really great though, not like I was disappointed by that or anything. It was really cool actually because the setting was so genuine and true to reality that the "extraordinary" abilities possessed by some of the characters were totally believable. Then something else I also really enjoyed about this book was the set up of the chapters. Each chapter took to you into a different point in time, and at the beginning everything was quite confusing and all over the place with all the different information, but as the story went along, things began to come together. This made it really interesting to read, and kept me motivated and intrigued to read more to see how things would connect. Pretty awesome.
I'm about to get into some spoilers, so if anyone is reading this who hasn't read the book, then you've been warned, lol. I think the most interesting part of this story to read is the processes by which Victor and Eli became "ExtraOrdinary." I really appreciated the attempt at a scientific explanation behind the change, and that's probably one of the reasons this book came off as so genuine and believable. Superheroes and super human abilities usually, at least for me, take a story into the realm of fantasy or paranormal, which is great because I love those genres, but always leaves me with the notion that they're not real, and that they're just stories. But this book is unique in that it felt as if it could be real, that people could actually use science to become "extraordinary." So ya, that was pretty sweet. But while on the topic of superheroes, I also loved how Scwhab dealt with that topic. None of actions of the characters in this book could be described as heroic by any means, but the characters certainly have the abilities you'd see in typical comic book super-heroes. They're all quite soulless, and don't feel any emotions, and that all ties in with the means by which they obtain their abilities, which gives the book a great touch.
Sooo yaaa, overall I really enjoyed reading this book! It's kind of like, an X-men, non-fiction crime retelling, drama-sort-of-thing. If that makes any sense. Which it doesn't. LOL. The writing flowed smoothly, the plot got going right away, and with the whole chapter-time-switching thing, it really made for a speedy read. I dare say too speedy though, because I would have liked it even better if there was more. I think if it had been a bit longer, and went a little slower, it would have been absolutely perfect! So with that being said, I give this book a solid 4/5 stars. Really great, super cool, blah blah, yuh know.
Feelings when I finished the book: