But he’s theirs, and he’s a good guy (so lovable!), and they have his back no matter what. Meanwhile, he goes to school and spends time with his best friends, who love Nick unconditionally, even when his brain and his tongue get him into trouble again and again. The police chief is determined to put a stop to the havoc caused by these Extraordinaries.īesides having a huge crush on Shadow Star, Nick writes incredibly popular fanfiction about him, and lives for the idea of meeting him eventually. They engage in epic battles over and around Nova City, but lately, these battles have escalated in their seriousness and the amount of damage left behind. Shadow Star’s archnemesis is Pyro Storm, the villain who can create and control fire, blocked from evil deeds by Shadow Star’s ability to manipulate shadows to carry out his will.

Shadow Star is the good guy, the masked man whose every move causes people to swoon in awe (and Nick to swoon in lust). Nova City is also the home of two Extraordinaries - superheroes who swoop in to fight crime and save the day. Now it’s just the two of them, and while they love each other very much, it’s just not always easy. They live in the After - the years that have passed since Nick’s mother was killed during a bank robbery. Nick and his father live in Nova City, where his dad is a hard-working cop on the night shift. And he really, really means to live up to that promise, but things have a way of not working out the way he plans. No more disrupting class or showing up late. Nick is starting junior year of high school with a promise to his dad to do better. Our hero, Nick Bell, has no superpowers to speak of - unless you count his amazing imagination, his neuro-atypical brain that never slows down, and his ability to screw up no matter his good intentions. I loved The House in the Cerulean Sea, which came out earlier this year, and now The Extraordinaries is here, with adorableness galore. Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl meets Marissa Meyer’s Renegades in TJ Klune’s YA debut.īased on having read two of his books, I can now pretty confidently state that TJ Klune writes books that makes me want to hug them. 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). But being the most popular fanfiction writer in the Extraordinaries fandom is a superpower, right?Īfter a chance encounter with Shadow Star, Nova City’s mightiest hero (and Nick’s biggest crush), Nick sets out to make himself extraordinary. TJ Klune’s YA debut, The Extraordinaries, is a queer coming-of-age story about a fanboy with ADHD and the heroes he loves.

The Extraordinaries by T.J. Klune