jethrien

Title: Broken
Author: Susan Jane Bigelow
Genre: Dystopia, with superheroes
Thingummies: 4

Synopsis: A precognitive teenager trying to save the world must protect a baby from a totalitarian government with metahuman enforcers, and his only ally is an alcoholic hobo who is only still alive because she can't be killed.

Thoughts: Disclaimer: I know this book's publisher.

I was halfway through this book when I managed to break my Nook, and I think my desire to keep reading it was a large factor in obtaining a new one.

This crumbling dystopia has a Justice League-style assemblage of superheroes who are almost entirely in the background. There's also a vast alien armada who have come and gone, who are also almost entirely in the background. The vast majority of the book is spent in the seedy underbelly of a fallen North America--combing the streets with the homeless, hiding from the police in a counter-culture commune, being captured by foolish paramilitary splinter groups.

What really won me were the character arcs. Michael doesn't change all that much--his courage is present from the start, and just needs a little fanning. But his voice is so earnest that I couldn't help but love him. Broken and Monica, on the other hand, started off really pretty annoying. And I was gratified by how well they came into their own by the end.

Two things did bother me slightly. I wanted a more concrete reason for Broken's loss of flight. Perhaps I missed it, but I kept expecting her to discover that the government had somehow tampered with her powers and that she needed to get away from Earth to regain them. It seems to have been more hand-wavey psychosomatic symptoms, though, which I found unsatisfying. Also unsatisfying was Sky Captain's fate--I didn't really feel like he earned his redemption and while his fate isn't happy, I can't help but feel it was more noble than he deserved.

But I'll forgive him for Broken's sake.