Wednesday 22 October 2014

Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain by Richard Roberts (Children's, 11 years +, 10E/10E)

Feburary 2014, Curiosity Quills, 374 pages, Ebook, Review copy

Content: inventions, some fighting, humour, lots of fun

Summary from Curiosity Quills
Penelope Akk wants to be a superhero. She’s got superhero parents. She’s got the ultimate mad science power, filling her life with crazy gadgets even she doesn’t understand. She has two super powered best friends. In middle school, the line between good and evil looks clear.

In real life, nothing is that clear. All it takes is one hero’s sidekick picking a fight, and Penny and her friends are labeled supervillains. In the process, Penny learns a hard lesson about villainy: She’s good at it.


Criminal masterminds, heroes in power armor, bottles of dragon blood, alien war drones, shape shifters and ghosts, no matter what the super powered world throws at her, Penny and her friends come out on top. They have to. If she can keep winning, maybe she can clear her name before her mom and dad find out.

Nayu's thoughts
This book took me months to read, not because it's bad or anything, but because there is a lot of technical detail with all of Penny's experiments – I guess it's partly a sci-fi read. Since I'm tired most of the time, I need more straight forward reads, which this wasn't, and I wasn't always in the mood for good fighting evil. Anyway, the important point is that I finished it! It's brilliant!!! Truly brilliant. I know one friend I'm recommending it to. I mean, every good person wants to be a hero, right? Well, imagine how hard it is having hero parents but Penny's talent veers towards being a villain. 

She tries to deny it, and become a hero, but, for a while comes to accept and on a level enjoy being a supervillain. I loved her crazy inventions. I loved how her friends developed powers. I have to say that I possibly prefer Claire to Penny, because she got to wear cute outfits! & her ability was being cute, although that took time to figure out. I loved imagining her skating about and turning on the cute charm. I loved the strength of their friendship which showed by the way they fought in the battles they had to endure. 

Some of the supervillains are terrifying. There were some sweetly horrific moments when Claire gets too freaked out, but she has to endure the event, so Penny & Ray do all they can to shield Claire from it. It was funny how everyone assumed they were villains. I loved the computer game they played which gave them inspiration for battle tactics. As a rule I hate zombies, but I loved Claires zombie dolls. (If I've remembered that part correctly...) They are the best type of weapon! 

I seriously hope there will be more books in the series as this humourous tale is incredible, and I suspect the adventures have only just begun for Penny, Claire & Ray. 

Suggested read 
Another fun series involving children with powers/responsibility who have famous parents is Ever After High by Shannon Hale which starts with Ever After High: The Storybook of Legends Children's, 11 years +, 10/10E)

No comments: