Heat Wave

Overwhelmingly meh. Except for the ending. Which makes me feel sick.

Admittedly, somewhere between the first book and this, the third, book, my interest in superheroes has completely gone. (Like, Marvel killed it, honestly.) But, beyond that, I really didn't think this book was very good.

After the second book ended with this huge reveal, book three starts with pretty much no mention, business as usual. It was definitely trippy and confusing at first, but it probably took me 10% of the book to realize what was going on. It took the characters almost half the book to be told what was going on.

This section was dragged out so much and I hated it so much. So, so much. I will admit, this is the sort of plot device that I always pick up on pretty quickly - but to me that says less about my intelligence and more about the complete and total overuse of this as a plot device. (I'm still bitter about a game doing this with one of my favorite characters and no one picking up on it!)

Then we are taken to the Burke of the matter. Which...I don't 100% understand what he was trying to do. He wants to wipe out extraordinaries and manufacture fake ones that are police? Why? Does he really think he'll be some messiah figure to the civilians and some controlling Dark Lord to the police if he does this? Because that's not what would happen.

For me, though, what made me sick was the endings. Like, the second from last chapter and the epilogue thing. (Not the last chapter, because that was more fanfic humor that, I hate to say, kind of outstayed its welcome for me.)

So...major series spoilers for the character of Owen Burke to follow.

Owen Burke's a murderer. Let's get that out of the way. We remember way back in book one that he killed people. (He, ostensibly, tried again in this book, but I don't think anyone actually died?) This book takes great pains to remind you of that.Why?So you can ignore the fact that he was a teenager that was abused and medically experimented on by his father.This book treats him as the big bad, the final boss. Seth and Nick working together cannot defeat him, so five adults gang up on him. This book lampshades it, but apparently doesn't see anything wrong with five adults (all of whom have superpowers at this moment) ganging up on a freaking abused teenager.(One of them even gets the line of 'I usually don't agree with hitting queers, but for you I'll make an exception.' because that is just so cool. [/sarcasm])He didn't need to be fought, he needed therapy.But, then he gets told there's 'always consequences for you actions' by someone that committed police brutality, didn't receive even a slap on the wrist and then simply left the force. Really? That's your chosen mouthpiece here?But, this is ignoring the fact that what this kid needed wasn't consequences - and, besides, where were the consequences for everyone else? Simon Burke? He went to prison, even though he started this and some could argue (me! me! I'd argue!) that he is directly responsible for any deaths Owen caused while using his powers.So, yes, he's in prison. His horrid wife is in prison. What happens to Owen, who, I would say is one of the actual victims of the story? He vanishes. He turns to a misty shadow and just ceases to exist. (By this point, he probably wanted to.)Does anyone care? Nope. We're more concerned about (activist rights!) getting Gibby reinstated as valedictorian and allowing Seth to return to school....

Finally, the ending. A time jump of nine (?) years all just so we can have a wonderfully happy ending with a wedding. Is there anything I hate more for a story ending than a wedding? I don't think so.

Considering that my favorite books by this author were the first two, romance focused, books I read of his, I'm probably done. (And to be fair, if I keep thinking about this, I will drop the rating and ... Honestly, with the way I feel, it probably deserves that, but I did get a few chuckles out of it, so...)