[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

It took me a while to get through this one. I’m not exactly sure why I wasn’t thrilled and not in the mood, but part of it probably had to do with the fact several characters have their arcs develop throughout the book, without enough screen time for each. When this happens Moreover, while there will be a second volume, and I didn’t expect everything to be solved here, some of these arcs were also cut short, without any proper ‘aftermath’ time being given. It’s akin to someone being deemed as super important because they will save us all, then that person suddenly refuses to do it, or dies, or is out of the picture for any other reason, and… that’s all. It’s supposed to be bad, but no one really dwells on it. It felt very strange.

I also struggled to get through and not skim. Not sure if it was the style (present-tense narrative is fine with me in small doses, but not for hundreds of pages). Or the apparent ‘main character’ who turns out to be sidelined pretty quickly, and wasn’t super pleasant to read about anyway. Or the plot jumping between characters but without really giving a feeling of cohesion. Probably a mix of all. In the end, the story deals with heavy themes (acceptance & rejection, internment for people with powers instead of trying to integrate everyone in a new society, being killed just for being different…), that affect the characters a lot, but… I didn’t really care about the characters. In fact, to the risk of sounding awful, the one character I enjoyed reading about the most was Owen Curry. Yes, that one. Also the circus/freakshow subplot. I guess that’s quite telling.

It wasn’t a bad story in itself. Depressing in parts, sure, because we already have enough of that intolerance crap in our real world out there. But that doesn’t make a story bad. As far as I’m concerned, though, the above made it a slog for me, so it was okay-ish in the end, but I can’t say I absolutely liked it.

[I received a copy of this book from the publisher.]

The final instalment in this series, or at least for Penny’s arc. The story picks up right after the previous volume’s cliffhanger, with Penny having to contend with her family and friends not believing ‘the evil robot’. One can only imagine the pain and sadness this is for a kid. She didn’t spend time moping, which I definitely liked, and she kept acting and taking the matter into hands, finding people to help her, getting to know her other friends better (like Marcia and Cassie), and revealing both to the readers and to herself that she’s made of tough stuff… But when she started writing letters to her parents, pretending she was at ‘supervillain camp’, that’s when I knew where the hurt had gone.

Also, Gerty. That character was pretty fun.

While I enjoyed it as a light read, though, I must admit I was disappointed about several things, such as:

- The way Penny comes clear to her parents. That was so anticlimactic and infuriating, since this was, after all, quite a stake for Penny.

- Ray and Claire are even more out of the way than in the previous volume. Sure, Penny gets other sidekicks, and doesn’t have to do everything alone, but… That was really a let-down. I like the original Inscrutable Machine trio, and seeing it in that state was heart-breaking.

- Half of the book felt like a filler, which disappointed me even more that if not for that, there would’ve been room and time for meaningful character development.

- No one seemed to stop and consider the Machine’s role for more than a second. When it was obvious that it held the key to who the original Penny was.

- The ending was… predictable. It wraps things up nicely, however I can’t tell it held any surprise for me.

Overall, this is a series I’d still recommend, but I wish it had ended on the same quality as the first book.

[I received a copy of this book from the publisher.]

I remember being disappointed with the previous instalment. This one, although not as strong as the first volume in the series, I felt was better—probably because it deals less with slice-of-life/school moments, and tackles more seriously the matter of Penny wanting to come clean to her parents about the Inscrutable Machine. Well, ‘seriously’ being a tentative word, because her plan is, as Ray and Clair put it, just crazy enough to actually work. (On the other hand, well, it’s a plan crafted by a 14-year-old mad scientist, soooooo... why not!)

... And you can sense this plan smells like Eau de Backfiring from the moment it is formulated, and can’t help but wait for the train wreck to happen, and... I admit, I liked that part of the plot. Even though it didn’t cover the whole book (too bad). In a twisted way, the mistakes Penny keeps committing seem to me like they’re actually her subconscious, or perhaps her power, acting her to act: she wants to be a hero, she regularly tries to help people and do good deeds, but somehow she seems more cut out to be an ambiguous hero at best. More suited to be filed with the likes of Lucyfar than Marvelous.

(I’m also thinking that IF this is what the author is indeed going for, then it might also explain the Audit’s lack of insight about her daughter: maybe the Audit does know, has known for a while, and isn’t saying anything because she wants Penny to realise by herself what her true decision will have to be.)

What I regret:

- Like in the previous two books, we don’t see much of Ray and Claire, both in terms of development and sidekicking (summer camp kind of gets in the latter’s way). Hopefully the last volume will take care of the whole ‘Ray’s family’ issue. Or maybe it’s not worth it? I don’t know, I’ve always felt there was something off to them, and not merely as in ‘they don’t like superheroes/villains so I can’t tell them I’m one now.’

- The coming back of a friendtagonist: I was expecting it, I wanted to see it happen, yet at the same time, the way it was dealt with felt like a plot device. Kind of ‘this character is needed to help Penny build one specific machine, and then will be unneeded for the rest of the book.’ Meh.

What I’m in between about:
- The ending. It is fairly depressing, and a cliffhanger... yet at the same time, I’m glad the whole thing wasn’t solved just like that, since it would’ve been too simple, and... ‘too clean?’

Conclusion: Not on par with volume 1, howeve it did leave me with a better impression than volume 3.

[I received a copy of this book from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.]

I have been following this series from its first volume, which I really liked, so I'll admit to being slightly biased. I like the main characters, the world of superheroes and villains developed here—everybody knows they exist, with more or less admiration and acceptance of what they do, and with a subverted Masquerade trope (supers don't hide per se, but there's an unspoken rule about “not getting personal”, that is, not revealing people's day-to-day identities).

And I'm feeling torn, because I liked this third volume, yet also found it kind of weak in terms of plot. Perhaps because it's more focused on a part of Penny et al.'s life we hadn't really seen yet, that is, growing up, and finding out that dividing one's life between villainous activities, trying to become a hero, and just good old norma activities, is time-consuming and difficult.

In that regard, it was interesting. Other kids are making their coming out, refusing to hide their powers any longer, and a wind of acceptance is blowing over the school. The club activities, the new lair, those were both fun to read about, and also leading to more thoughtful considerations.

I quite liked Marcia's development, although I wish we had been given some more information about how exactly she turned out like that (“she has the scrolls” is a bit of a shortcut: how did she survive them?). Her powers are of a kind that I find fascinating, that is, would you stay sane if nothing could hurt you, or not for long? Or would you start experimenting, looking for the one thing that may do you harm? It made me think of Claire's experiments at the beginning of the “Heroes” series, only in a more.. unhealthy way. But then, I much prefer this Marcia to theuppity girl from book 1.

Quite a few things that left me frustrated, though:

- This is really more a “slice of life” book, without any real plot apart from the loose “teenagers gathering and developing their powers”. As mentioned above, it allowed to delve deeper into our three wannabe-heroes (or wannabe-villains?) problems and potential choices for the future, and to reveal more about existing characters, like Bull and his family. On the other hand, there was no real main plot here, ideas would spring up and unfurl into short events that would then die down, and good plot devices were lost in the middle. What about the robot? (Having her around more would've been fun... and I think we could do with a new Vera by now.) What exactly happened to Barbara to make her another kind of unpredictable, but perhaps still as dangerous as her sister? Also, we're having many secondary characters introduced (the club) and this is screen time may have been better used on the Inscrutable Machine (who didn't do enough villainy to my liking—I want to see them dostuff back together more often!).

- Still no real insight as to Ray's family, which makes his position hard to relate to: it seems his parents would hate him if they were to learn he's a super, and so he both wants to stay and to leave... but that's only what we're told. We never get to see his family. We don't know what they're like. Regular people, from what I rememberfrom book 1... or not so much? Are they heroes or villains in disguise? Or maybe people who got badly hurt in the past by some hero or villain, and now they despise everything “super”? I really, really want to know, and I really hope there's more to Ray's folks than the little we'vebeen told so far. It can't be so simple. And if it has to be “that bad”, then I want to see it, too.

- Are the Akks so blind as to their daughter's activities? Or are they pretending not to know? Deluding themselves? By now, this is more than troublesome. Maybe Penny's father might get away with this (scientist more focused on his own inventions, and all that), but it's difficult to keep seeing the Audit as this calculating, probabilities- and statistics-wielding ex-hero, as this sort of human computer, when she's so oblivious to what's so obvious. The “bumbling blind adult” trope isn't working.

Honestly, I don't like giving less than 3 stars to this book. But...

Nevertheless, this novel raises some interesting questions and potential future arcs at the end, and I'd still want to see those in a next installment, if it meant more antics from the trio. Among other things: what is the Inscrutable Machine to do, to choose, considering that they seem to be really talented at villainous stuff (with the good deeds backfiring), yet still find themselves instinctively helping people as well as causing mayhem? And what is Spider up to?

(I got a copy from the publisher, as part of the review tour, in exchange for an honest review.)

I read the first installment of this series, Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm A Supervillain, last year, and thought it was a pretty good novel. So, of course, I couldn't pass up on the invitation to read the second one.

I found it weaker, though I still liked it. It contains a lot of good ideas and concepts, and it's perfect if looking for a wild adventure in space, with alien technology and bio-weapons, lost space stations hidden on asteroids, and a steampunkish flavour to boot. Those parts were highly amusing, in terms of Weird Science, and Penny's power developed in a way that clearly forced her to rethink a few things and decide whether she wanted to go (too) far or stop while it was still time. Archimedes, for instance, was both fascinating and creepy in its uses and in the possibilities it introduced.

Remmy's character, too, was an interesting counterpoint to Penny: two girls with similar powers, with a basis for strong friendship, but also for jealousy and competition. I could se where Remmy came from, why she eacted the way she did, out of stubborness more thananything else, probably... but then, she's also only eleven. I'd certainly like to see her appear again later in the series, if only for a chance to see how that relationship could develop if given more time and more distance.

On the other hand, the fast-paced plot sometimes left me dangling, as I wondered "wait, when did this character walk into the room?" or "why aren't they paying more attention to the fct that [character X] has basically done a huge mistake?" It made me feel like the story carried the characters where they needed to be, but not always with a clear reason.

Two things I regret:
- The somewhat lackluster presence of Claire and Ray. Their antics are funny, and they make good sidekicks. However, at the end of the first novel, we had been given more to see about Ray, in particular, and I had hoped this arc, among others, would be explored. However, apart from playing sidekicks, those two didn't really get much development.

- The very feeble involvement of Penny's parents and other adults (although I laughed at the Audit's interpretation of the situation, because... it did make sense, in a "I'm a parent who cannot imagine my daughter is evil, so I'll unconsciously find another solution"). In the first book, I really liked the "please don't tell my parents..." concept, and how the Inscrutable Machine had to go to various ends to hide their identity, make people think they weren't Penelope, Claire and Ray. Here, since most of the story unfolds in space, the pressure of not being discovered was much less a problem (even though Penny's realisation at the end—how to make a Hero appear—gives me good hopes for the next installment's potential plot).

In general, it is still a pleasant story to read, though its predecessor will remain higher on my list.