V is for Villain
Brad Baron has been living in the shadow of his older brother, Blake, all his life. Blake is bigger, stronger, faster—and he can fly. Somehow, Blake got the superpower genes, and all Brad got was enhanced intelligence. In the superherocentric world of V Is for Villain, brains don’t count for much. “Just because you don’t have powers . . . doesn’t mean that you’re any less of a human being,” says Blake. Who wouldn’t turn villain in the face of that kind of attitude? And when Brad is transferred out of the hero program at his school, he meets other kids like him with “minor” or low-level powers, kids who question the might-equals-right paradigm that exalts superheroes without regard to the consequences of their methods. Maybe the difference between hero and villain is muddier than it seems. Some of the characterizations in this quasi-dystopian novel can be a little heavy-handed, but with plenty of plot twists, dastardly conspiracies, and a snarky narrator, the latest from Moore (Red Moon Rising, 2011) has lots of sparkle. Grades 8-11. --Paula  Willey