We finally did a buddyread of The Extraordinaries by T.J. Klune! It’s been over a year since we got our eARC’s for this one and while we were very excited about it, we just didn’t pick it up. But after loving The House In The Cerulean Sea we realized we really had to get going on The Extraordinaries. It still took us a while, but we finally read it haha, and now we want to share our thoughts. So let’s jump in!

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SOME PEOPLE ARE EXTRAORDINARY. SOME ARE JUST EXTRA. T.J. KLUNE'S YA DEBUT, 'THE EXTRAORDINARIES', IS A QUEER COMING-OF-AGE STORY ABOUT A FANBOY WITH ADHD AND THE HEROES HE LOVES.
Nick Bell? Not extraordinary. But being the most popular fanfiction writer in the 'Extraordinaries' fandom is a superpower, right?
After a chance encounter with Shadow Star, Nova City's mightiest hero (and Nick's biggest crush), Nick sets out to make himself extraordinary. And he'll do it with or without the reluctant help of Seth Gray, Nick's best friend (and maybe the love of his life).
**Rainbow Rowell's 'Fangirl' meets Marissa Meyer's 'Renegades' in T.J. Klune's YA debut.**
RUNNING TIME ➼ 10hrs.
©2020 T.J. Klune (P)2020 Macmillan Audio

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The Extraordinaries by T.J. Klune
Series: The Extraordinaries #1
on 14/07/2020
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 405
Format: ARC
Source: Netgalley
Goodreads

Cover

Candyce In all honesty this wouldn’t be a cover buy for me. This book was definitely one that got picked up because of the synopsis and now wanting to read everything by this author. I do love the colors and it really isn’t the worst cover I’ve seen.

Isabelle If I’m being honest, I don’t like that cover that much. It’s not bad, it’s just not great either haha. I like the colors and I like the illustration but overall it just doesn’t wow me. So I don’t think I would pick this up right away if I saw it at the bookstore. At least not based on the cover or title. Luckily the author and the synopsis do make me want to pick it up ;).

Review

Candyce After loving The House in the Cerulean so much I decided I needed to read everything by T.J. Klune. The Extraordinaries was on my Netgalley shelf for quite some time and I knew it was time to pick it up. This book did not disappoint at all.

The Extraordinaries was the perfect balance of humor, heartwarming moments, and amazing characters. This book was predictable in many ways, but that did not bug me at all. The author was able to surprise me a few times and that was really nice. I’m a big fan of superheroes and villains and the world created by Klune made me look at them differently. I loved that the whole concept of superhero and villain was discussed. Not something I’ve seen done like this before.

Besides an interesting plot we also get an amazing cast of characters. Nick is such an amazing character. He is flawed and knows he isn’t perfect. His friends know this as well and accept it. He’s still dealing with things that have happened in his family and this really hit me in the feels. I have to admit this book had me in tears a few times. Nick has ADHD and some anxiety after a tragic event in his life. I can’t say if these things were done completely right, but they felt genuine and are similar to things I’ve seen in my own family members. He’s still discovering a lot about himself and I love how clueless he still is about certain aspects in his life.

Nick’s best friends and his father are amazing side characters and I enjoyed reading about them all. The aspect of fan fiction was also included and while it stays more in the background it was definitely interesting. All in all, I really liked this book and I’m excited to read the sequel.

Isabelle I had pretty high hopes for this one! After loving The House In The Cerulean Sea I knew T.J. Klune could write an amazing story and create an interesting world. The Extraordinaries is a YA fantasy set in a contemporary world so for me that does come with different expectations. While I heard before that T.J. Klune wrote funny books, I did not expect this to be that funny, but I laughed so much during my read!

The plot is pretty predictable and that was okay. Like I said, I have different expectations for different books and this book didn’t need to have a surprising plot. Although I will say there were some nice twists! Most of them I did see coming but I liked how they were done a lot. One of the things I loved most was how funny this book. I laughed out loud multiple times. The characters said hilarious things and the situations were super funny. This was also about superheroes and villains, something I enjoy. And I especially enjoyed that there was some conversation about what makes a hero a hero and how it’s not always easy. I’m looking forward to more of that in the sequel.

Another thing I loved were the characters! We got a nice diverse group of characters. Nick is our main character, very well developed and definitely flawed. His whole friend group is queer and I loved how supportive they were. But they also told Nick how it was and didn’t let him get away with all of his idiocy all the time. Nick has ADHD and I thought that was portrayed really well. I don’t personally have ADHD so I can’t fully speak to the representation but it fit very well with what I learned getting my degree and what I see in my students. So I really liked that. I also liked that Nick was flawed, he made some bad decisions but he also showed real growth and I think that is much more realistic and interesting to read about.

Overall I really enjoyed the story and definitely want to read the sequel, especially after that ending! I think this is the perfect book is you want to read about a queer group of friends, superhero’s and villians and just want to laugh out loud a lot.

So as you can tell we both loved The Extraordinaries and are excited about the sequel. Have you read this or anything else by this author? Let us know in the comments! We’d love to hear from you.