(I Also Write Children's Books!)

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

HOODS

Woah.  Check it, I have reached that level of fame where people give me copies of books and ask for reviews!  Personally, I think he's crazy because I'm not that famous, but here is my review of Hoods by David Wilson!

Hoods is YA superheroes, of course.  Why else ask for my opinion?  It is way, way more serious than my Supervillain books.  The fictional town these kids live in is a series of slums so riddled with crime that the only question is which gang owns your streets.  Despite that, it's not too dark.  There's tension, but while the threat is ever present, the book avoids blood and murder and torture and trauma and stuff like that.

But what you want to know is how good it is!  Once I got past the wildly different tone, it was very good!  Great descriptions, fantastic action scenes, good tension.  It's definitely an action book, and pulls that off completely.  I know nothing of real street gangs, but they felt plausible.  The author set up a particularly cute system of super powers, where most of them are variations of a limited precognition brought on by specific superhuman analysis skills.  The fighting power character is superhuman not from strength and speed, but because he instinctively understands what his opponents are about to do, and what he needs to do.  The stealth girl isn't invisible, she just knows where to stand and how to move to not be noticed even if she's right next to you.  That sort of thing.

If you like serious YA superheroes, I definitely recommend Hoods, and apparently David Wilson thinks my recommendation matters.  Woo, I'm important!

4 comments:

  1. Hey, you do this? Never heard of Hoods, but will check it out.
    BTW, please check out 'Fantasy Begins: Book 1 of the Dungeon Hive Trilogy' or 'The Suit-Maker'.
    I would love for you to review my books if you are willing. :)

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  2. I think you'll find you have more followers than you think. I know I've been wanting to send you my books for awhile now but I haven't really known where to send them. That and I'm waiting for the cover art to be done for one of them. They are YA superhero/supervillain books (obviously). They are two paralleling books where a single coin toss at the beginning of the books changes the main characters destiny so in one he becomes a hero with super strength and in the other a villain with shadow powers.
    If you're at all interested in reading them let me know where I can send them (I currently only have them on Amazon Kindle). I would love to hear what you think.

    For anyone who might be interested they are called Diverging Destinies: Hero and Diverging Destinies: Villain. They are two completely different stories though the first chapter is the same in both.

    While I have your attention: Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain and Sweet Dreams Are Made of Teeth are two of my favorite books. Wild Children is up there too (Little disappointed it's not available on Amazon anymore. I just checked). I've enjoyed all your books so far and only have the new cyborg one still to read. I'm looking forward to diving into it once I have the free time.

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  3. I just discovered your series on tvtropes earlier this year and I've binged through Penny's five books. These are great!

    I found an AMA you did on Reddit a few years ago, and I was wondering if you would do another?

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  4. I know this isnt really a recommendation thing and it's not my book but if you have time you should check out book one of Villains Code by Drew Hayes. Reminds me alot of your work and it's amazing. Though if you did want to check out my work my story Level Down is on Royal Road but its litrpg nor superhero and it's not YA. Anyway I'm relistening to PDTMP and I still love them. I'd love to see more inscrutable machine books and especially one from Claire's POV, I still want to know if her dad is super or just a regular guy and if she might develop his powers later if it's the former.

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