Not Your Sidekick (Sidekick Squad #1) by C.B. Lee
"Welcome to Andover… where superpowers are common, but internships are complicated. Just ask high school nobody, Jessica Tran. Despite her heroic lineage, Jess is resigned to a life without superpowers and is merely looking to beef-up her college applications when she stumbles upon the perfect (paid!) internship—only it turns out to be for the town’s most heinous supervillain. On the upside, she gets to work with her longtime secret crush, Abby, who Jess thinks may have a secret of her own. Then there’s the budding attraction to her fellow intern, the mysterious “M,” who never seems to be in the same place as Abby. But what starts as a fun way to spite her superhero parents takes a sudden and dangerous turn when she uncovers a plot larger than heroes and villains altogether."
“Maybe Jess was caught up with these ridiculous, impossible ideas because it meant she never had to try for something real.”
― C.B. Lee, Not Your Sidekick
This book was so good! Jessica was such a great MC and I loved seeing her story unfold. I thought that she handled her disappointment so well by deciding to get an awesome internship instead. Making the most of her powerlessness. She was smart and her awkwardness around her crush felt very real to life. The cast of side characters in this book was enjoyable to read about as well. There wasn’t anyone in this book that I did not like in some way or other.
I felt like this book had a really good balance of fun and quirky but also realistic and serious. Jessica Tran sits at the crossroads of several different identities and has to deal with not really fitting in with any of them. She deals with the very real feeling of falling short of her parents’ expectations for her compared to their accomplishments and the accomplishments of her siblings. I highly recommend this one!
Genre: ya, sci-fi, fantasy, lgbtqia+, superheroes
Representation: bi, wlw, queer and trans side characters
Content Warnings: superhero/villain violence, kidnapping
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