Overview

Every young person thinks they're indestructible. Ree knows it. Her parents were superheroes. They passed on invulnerability and the power of flight to their daughter, but when she was 14, they were both killed trying to save New York. Now it's ten years later. Ree's unemployed, drinks too much, and tries to blot out the feeling that she should be doing more with her life. Flying around punching people can only do so much to help Buffalo's entrenched poverty and segregation. But when she flies into a burning building and sees a person made of fire, and rescues a teenage girl who can blow things up in her sleep, she's drawn into a mystery against her better judgement. Charles is a typical teenage boy. He just wants a girl to notice him. And for everyone else to not notice him. Which is tough to manage when flames shoot out of his hands and almost burn down his school. Usually powers like his aren't a surprise; you inherit them from your parents. But Charles' parents are just regular people. So why isn't he? When he meets a cute older girl who can freeze anything she touches, will opposites attract? And will she help him solve the mystery of his powers? Selfdestructible is a fun, fast-paced adventure, but like The Magicians or Jessica Jones, it uses the characters' extraordinary abilities as a framework to tell a story about damaged people trying to deal with loss and find their place in the world. How can you live up to your potential, when your potential is superhuman?

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9781732479012

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Reviews

Vago mines the genre conventions of young people with superpowers to tell a story about potential, growing up, and growing into yourself. The stakes are life-and-death for these directionless not-quite-superheroes, and Selfdestructible is a fast-paced adventure that mines extraordinary abilities to tell a grounded story about damaged people finding their place in the world. --Caitlin PenzeyMoog, The A.V. Club The combo of young adult/superhero is neither brand new nor has it been exhausted, and Mike Vago makes a worthy and personal contribution to it with his debut novel Selfdestructible... the feel of it calls up one of the best and most underrated of superhero movies, the first X-Men a melancholic character study, occasionally interrupted by the burdens of history and spectacle, about people who are different from everyone else in the world, and not by choice. -- Grant Wallflower Nebel, The Solute

Author Information

Mike Vago is the author of four unusual-format novelty books and one novel, and is a regular contributor to The A.V. Club. He tells people he lives in New York City, but he really lives in New Jersey.

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