Mik Murdoch: Boy Superhero – Book Review

Michell Plested wrote a book about a boy who wants to be a superhero. It’s easy to read and beautifully written.

This is one of the novels nominated for this year’s Aurora Awards.

Below is my review. For more information on how and why I review books read my posts Part 1 and Part 2.

Characters

I liked

Writing from a child’s perspective is difficult. It’s tempting to try and write the way a child would speak, or what we think a child speaks. Plested didn’t fall into this trap he used a vocabulary and writing style that was elevated but accessible. The greatest strength of this novel is how authentic it feels. Mik is believable as a character because of his thought process, logic, and reference points.

I didn’t like

If I have one complaint about the book, it is its lack of fleshing out all the characters. I feel I understood his parents, and a few of his teachers but it was hard for me to fully understand the other secondary characters. I would have liked to know more about them. Especially the librarian.

For characters, I give it 4 out of 5

Writing Style

I liked

The book was structured around a series of events that form  Mik’s personality and show his quest to be a hero. With that structure, it felt like a series of short stories about the same character. Despite its modular feel I never lost interest. I was impressed how well the author wove the stories together.

I didn’t like

There was a certain frustration I had while reading. I kept trying to decide if this was speculative fiction or just a coming of age story. It was never clear until one particular point and when that point arrived I had already decided the opposite and I found this a little jarring.

I give it 4 out of 5.

Story

I liked

The biggest pet peeve I have with YA writing is the stereotype that parents are not only the enemy but stupid. It happens more often in Horror, or urban-fantasy but it happens a lot in superhero stories too. Plested took this stereotype and stripped it down to its simplest form. That being that parents aren’t stupid but they are biased, and fallible. It also helps that Mik tries to protect his parents and often has to worry about them figuring him out. Never does he treat them as a villain but as an obstacle.

The story flows well and the general suspense of whether he really is going to get powers is written perfectly. There was a point of the book that I just stopped worrying about it and let things happen.

Several Story points weren’t finished, which is fine considering he’s writing a sequel.

I didn’t like

The problems with a modular style is separating the stories in the readers head. Everyone is looking for Chekhov’s gun and we’ve been trained by the stories we grew up with that things come back. So when characters that seem important don’t come back it’s disconcerting.

I give the story 4 out of 5

Fun

I liked

This book was a fast and fun read. I felt drawn into the story and the character. I enjoyed it all the way through.

I didn’t like

The worst thing about this book was that it ended.

I greatly anticipate the sequel.

I give it 5 out of 5 for fun

Overall

I highly recommend this to anyone who likes superheroes, coming of age stories, or reading.

Final score is 85%

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9 thoughts on “Mik Murdoch: Boy Superhero – Book Review”

  1. You want the secondary characters to be more fleshed out, but you don’t want characters that seem important to not come back. This feels contradictory to me. So you want all the secondary characters to be fleshed out and come back often? That feels like it would make the book very character heavy.
    I like that this is recommended to anyone who likes to read. 😛

    Reply
    • I see where my comments could be confusing. It’s less that I want him to tell me more about every character and more that I want him to tell me more about the characters that are important to the story. And the ones I like.
      There are a few characters that look like they’ll be important and once their arc is over they don’t show up but you keep expecting them too.
      He describes one character as his arch-nemesis but that character disappears quickly after its first story wraps up.
      Does that make more sense?

      Reply
  2. You want the secondary characters to be more fleshed out, but you don’t want characters that seem important to not come back. This feels contradictory to me. So you want all the secondary characters to be fleshed out and come back often? That feels like it would make the book very character heavy.
    I like that this is recommended to anyone who likes to read. 😛

    Reply
    • I see where my comments could be confusing. It’s less that I want him to tell me more about every character and more that I want him to tell me more about the characters that are important to the story. And the ones I like.
      There are a few characters that look like they’ll be important and once their arc is over they don’t show up but you keep expecting them too.
      He describes one character as his arch-nemesis but that character disappears quickly after its first story wraps up.
      Does that make more sense?

      Reply
  3. I don’t know how I could have possibly missed your review, but somehow I did. Let me thank you now for the thorough and well thought out comments. I truly appreciate it.

    I understand what you mean about the modularity of the story. I felt that was the right way to approach what I consider to be Mik’s origin story. Book 2 (Mik Murdoch: The Power Within) which was released this August is more of a continuous whole

    I also liked many of the secondary characters. You will see some of them reappear in future books. You might even one day see them in their own books.

    Thank you again.

    Reply

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