Review Detail

Young children often want to be just like their parents, and teenagers want to be anything but. In between is the time when people first begin to branch out to forge their new identities; some achieve, some conform, and some rebel. Some rebel by accident.

This is the case with young Penny Akk. Her parents - known to the adoring public and terrified villains as 'The Audit' and 'Brainy Akk' - are famed superheroes, and she wants nothing more than to be a hero like them. This is equal parts wanting to follow in their world-saving footsteps and wanting to get out from under their perpetual shadow, but when she gets her wish it doesn't go nearly how she expects. The sudden awakening of her powers as an incredible technologist able to intuitively build devices that bend the very laws of time and space would have been the best day of her life had it not quickly been followed by a series of unfortunate events that saw her and her two best-friends-slash-henchmen branded as villains instead. Soon the entirety of hero society is searching high and low for the new threat on the block, and the only thing more frightening than this is the delighted welcoming embrace of the villainous comnmunity... and how good that feels.

It is difficult in the extreme for a young adult book to simultaneously present interesting characters and a fascinating plot, let alone one capable of appealing to older people as well, but in 'Supervillain' Richard Roberts has rung the cherries. Not only are Penny and her friends Claire and Ray more complex and realistic personalities than this genre usually plays host to, but even one-appearance background characters are given their own voices and goals in a way that presents a vibrant and weirdly realistic depiction of a city overrun with super-powered criminals and vigilantes - one noteworthy example is the brawny Juggernaut-like supervillain Bull, whose single brief appearance nonetheless leaves you sad for him and wanting to know how it works out.

The only downside are that the book is a little bit long, and in a few brief places seems to drag. Strangely, these are in the action sequences: the characters and their interactions are so interesting that the few scenes of actual toe-to-toe action feel like distractions. Of course, they are also necessary: a superhero story without action would be like a spider without its web, or indeed a supervillain without their henchmen - incomplete.

There is nothing incomplete about "Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain". It starts where it should, ends where it has to, and virtually everything in between is a delight. This will appeal to anyone with a sense of wonder and adventure, but it is especially recommended for girls who think one more pretty pink princess would be about ten too many. Penny Akk forges her own way, and brooks no opposition!

And I for one welcome our new pre-adolescent overlord.