YA Audiobook Review Weekend: Hero by Perry Moore

Genre: Superheroes, Science Fiction, LGBTQ, Young Adult

Publisher: Disney Hyperion (September 7, 2007)

Author Information: Website

Tiara’s Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Narrator: Michael Urie | Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins | Audiobook Publisher: Audible Studios (October 12, 2010) | Whispersync Ready: No

Thom Creed is hiding secrets from his father. First, he’s gay, and he knows well enough how his father feels about gay people, and secondly, he has superpowers and his father hates powers (his father is powerless)–well, superheroes, actually.  Thom lives a simple life with his dad since his mother abandoned them years before. His father works hard to provide a decent life for them, though it’s been hard due to trouble in his past as a former hero of a group called The League, which causes both scorn and admiration in the people who know him. I should note that superhero identities are not secret in this book. They wear costumes, but everyone knows who’s behind the mask except in the case of a vigilante hero known as Dark Hero.  Thom finds his life taking an unexpected turn when he’s asked to tryout for The League due to his healing powers, which he has to hide from his father.

I enjoyed this book for many reasons. First, it’s no secret that I love comics and superheroes. Most of Moore’s characters are thinly veiled versions of Marvel and DC characters, such as Warrior Woman (Wonder Woman), Dark Hero (Batman), American Agent (Captain America) and Justice (Superman). This book even gives most of the characters a similar origin as their counterparts with very little deviation. I think some readers may find that annoying and lacking imagination, but I thought that was a great in the same way that Garth Ennis’ The Boys was great for doing that. It’s meant to be a satirical comment on heroes, even the names are comical.

More importantly, the All-Father Stan Lee gave the foreword, not that I believe for one second he actually read this book because I’m cynical like that.

Thom was an character that didn’t annoy me. He’s a good kid. His family life is difficult, so he tries his best to help his dad in any way he can. I did think that Moore might’ve went a little overboard in the beginning with Thom having so much on plate with sports and his two jobs along with school. It was nice to read a YA where the kid wasn’t whining for twenty straight pages about inconsequential shit, though. Yes, I know kids do that, but Thom seemed act mostly appropriate for the type of life he’s led with his father. This is YA, so there was plenty of melodrama, but I find that YA books with male protagonists are much less histrionic than many YA books with female protagonists. It had it’s moments with the romance, but even Thom’s growing interest in another character doesn’t overwhelm the book. It remembers that it has a plot unlike many other YA books who seem to think they have a romance and everything else is filler.

Thom is initially paired up with a surly girl named Scarlett who controls fire, one of the A-listers that got demoted to their team leader, a speedster named Golden Boy, Typhoid Larry who can make people sick with a touch, and the best character, Ruth, an old woman with a fondness for smoking and a raspy cigarette voice who predicts the future. Thom’s team truly are D-listers with substantial issues that they’re dealing with from health conditions, old regrets, esteem issues, to identity crises/abandonment issues. When one character explains why he he adores Thom’s father–when Thom expresses skepticism that anyone revered his father– he says :

“Your dad was the only hero who knew what it was like to grow up in an orphanage. He knew what it felt like, not being wanted […] Your dad made it out, and he didn’t even have a super power.”

That punctuated for Thom that heroes aren’t just heroes because they have a super power, but because they represent something for someone; they have made a lasting impression on someone’s life. With his team, he learns empathy, which in turns helps his powers and actually makes Thom focus less on himself. Thom’s personal worries are understandable, but this book allowed him to grow a little and learn that mastering his powers meant learning to see beyond the facades that people put up to protect themselves, to think beyond more than just himself. I also liked that Moore had a concept that powers came with consequences, consequences that a hero may or may not be able to control. Thom’s conundrum was “Where did all the pain go that he took from others?” However, this didn’t seem to be consistent over the board for inexperienced heroes.

Thom had many things going on in his life, and because his problems were so numerous, I knew that parts of the plot were going to have to suffer. You don’t get all the problems that Thom has and expect everything to wrap up neatly in just this short time frame. There were parts of the story that lacked cohesion and could be too predictable at points. There was all this mystery into the big reveal for Dark Hero’s identity, but if you don’t figure out who it is well before you get to the ending, then it will be a sad day in Mudville. While I didn’t mind all the characters basically being comic book characters we already know, I wish there’d been a little more originality to the story and what he did with these caricatures of them.  My biggest complaint is the ending, though. I felt there was very little foreshadowing for that. You get just a tad bit of a hint that something is off, but not enough to see that coming at you. Once it happens, though, you’ll probably be left thinking, “Why am I not surprised?”

While I certainly applaud Moore for choosing to write this story about a gay, male superhero, this is part of where his story lacks, as well. A large part of the story dealt with Thom’s  fear of his dad finding out he’s gay, especially since he harbors a painful memory of his father going on a homophobic rant when he was a child. Instead of having Thom’s dad come to terms with his son’s sexuality through interaction, Moore uses the old cliché that Thom’s dad always knew he was gay and just skirted around it, tried to pretend it didn’t exist. There’s never any real discussion about Thom’s sexuality between father and son. There’s just acceptance after his dad spent most of the book making pointed statements like, “We’ll find the right girl for you.”

However, I was glad that Thom knew he was gay. What I mean, there’s no questioning or any reasoning that maybe something was wrong with him. Thom is gay. Thom has never had a girlfriend because he’s never been attracted to girls or even seemed to want to experiment with them. Thom accepted who he was and didn’t try to be anything other than that. He wasn’t “out” for most of the book, but there was never any question of what he considered his sexual orientation. I’m not demonizing books that do have young adults questioning their sexuality, but sometimes, it’s nice to see a young adult who is confident enough to say, even if it’s only to himself, “This is who I am. There is nothing that will change that.” His struggles with his sexuality stemmed from embarrassing his father and trying to keep his orientation hidden from others as he’s not ready to be out yet. He never directly denies any allegations thrown at him about his sexuality. He simply doesn’t engage, and that’s a very plausible response.

Narration wise, Michael Urie was phenomenal. His voicing of Ruth was by far my favorite. He caught that smoker’s voice well. Ruth was probably my favorite character in the whole book too. She was a tough old broad who wasn’t afraid to read people the riot act, but she cares for her misfit team. I’m definitely interested in see what else Urie has narrated. He made this story fun.

Overall, a great concept and a great read despite it being too ambitious with its plot points. It definitely made the superhero fan in me happy. Now, if I could just stop humming that Spider-Man song “Hero,” I’d be really happy. I would’ve loved to have seen more of this story, but tragically, Moore died in 2011.

Now, it’s stuck in your head too.

Story:  | Performance:  | Overall: