Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jul 2020
400 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
Some people are extraordinary. Some are just extra. TJ Klune's YA debut, The Extraordinaries, is a queer coming-of-age story about a fanboy with ADHD and the heroes he loves.
Nick Bell? Not extraordinary. But being the most popular fanfiction writer in the Extraordinaries fandom is a superpower, right?
After a chance encounter with Shadow Star, Nova City's mightiest hero (and Nick's biggest crush), Nick sets out to make himself extraordinary. And he'll do it with or without the reluctant help of Seth Gray, Nick's best friend (and maybe the love of his life).
Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl meets Marissa Meyer's Renegades in TJ Klune's YA debut.
"There's plenty in this lighthearted, superhero-interested teen dramedy for kids who feel like they're sometimes on the outside, including the positive representation of a teen with ADHD." - Publishers Weekly
"Klune plays with superhero genre tropes and fan-fiction clichés with the skill of a true fan—completely aware of their ridiculousness but in love with them anyway. Hilarious, sweet, and absolutely super!" - Kirkus Reviews
"Klune's romp is irresistibly readable…Readers will be delighted!" - Booklist
"Klune takes cues from Peter Milligan's classic queer comic Enigma, with an Everyman bewildered by the superhero story that seems to revolve around him. Hand to teens involved in fandom, writers of fan fiction, lovers of superhero stories, and queer romance readers." - School Library Journal
"If you're looking for a book to read and then reread several times before the next Spider-Man movie releases, this will be perfect." - Buzzfeed
"The most down-to-earth book about superheroes I've ever read. I laughed, I cried, and I had a smile on my face the entire time I was reading it" - Mason Deaver, bestselling author of I Wish You All the Best
"Uproariously funny, this razor-sharp book is half a love-letter to fandom, half self-aware satire, and wholly lovable. I haven't read anything quite like this before!" - Sophie Gonzales, author of Only Mostly Devastated
This information about The Extraordinaries was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
TJ Klune is the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of The House in the Cerulean Sea and many other books for adults. Being queer himself, TJ believes it's important―now more than ever―to have accurate, positive, queer representation in stories. The Extraordinaries is his young adult debut.
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