Not Your Sidekick

C B Lee

O.R.S.: This book is about Jess, a teenager growing up in a household of superpowered heroes, but without a power of her own.  As such, she decided to get an internship at a mysterious corporation, which turns out to be more than she bargained for.  It’s told in third person perspective from Jess’s perspective 

Why do I like this so much?  Not sure – it checks all the YA (or even perhaps a little younger) box du jour – gender fluid friendships, racial identity questions (Jess is Vietnamese Chinese possibly?,) a star-crossed love interest, lots of emotional upheaval, largely absent parents, Jess herself identifies as bisexual, and so forth.  So on the surface, one might think that it goes about its work in a somewhat familiar and predictable fashion. While this is somewhat true, it’s fun, fast, like reading an Archie novel with superpowers (otherwise known as The Runaways)–you see the twists coming, the drama is lightweight and mostly inconsequential, Jess’s love interest is telegraphed by the first quarter, and like a Netflix rom-com, you’re just waiting for it to happen.  But perhaps because it avoids the torturous drag-out of other YA fantasy/rom-com’s, Not Your Sidekick doesn’t feel ponderous or overweighted with bathos.  Instead, C.B.Lee gives the reader just enough action, everything is brisk, and even the Asian identity crisis is given its place but not overwhelming.  And yet it’s also precise in moments, capturing specific details like the difference in Mandarin fluency, such that you don’t feel that it’s completely paint by numbers.  Perhaps it helps that the main character may be slightly modeled after the author, based on their bio.   So… is it anything more than a fast food burger?  No.  But it’s wonderful snacking.  And yes, I recognise that it’s very much for a young audience, but so is Wall-E.

296p