What do you get when you mix an ‘invisible’ boy, a liar, two
crowd-controllers, a destroyer of all things electronic, a boy with a mouth
that can talk by itself and a blind-but-not-really-blind girl? The answer is, the
Zeroes; a misfit ex-band of superheroes who are forced to reunite to save their
one of their own, from his own mess of trouble.
I picked up this book for a number of reasons, the first of
which was, that it was hard to miss. It’s been lauded everywhere. Zeroes is a
New York Times Bestseller, and as such has been all over bookseller websites
and social media. I personally took interest in it when I stumbled upon it on
the #LoveOzYA tag on Twitter. Of course, the other reason why I took interest
in Zeroes, is that I’m a big fan of all things superhero-related such as
Captain America, I’m always on the lookout for new superheroes to discover, and
who doesn’t want to read about teenage heroes? Sorry, Zeroes?
The interesting thing about Zeroes was that there were three
authors: Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan and Deborah Biancotti, who are all
authors in their own right. Together, they have created a book with a central
story about a bank robbery gone wrong, with six sub-stories that weave in and
out with the main plot. It’s not the story so much that was interesting for me,
but the characters. The thing I liked most about the characters was the fact
that they were the kind of people that could actually exist, with each one
being relatable, specifically to teenagers, in their own way. Each character
has a different, original power, though none can use their power without
significant consequence to themselves. This begs the question, are their powers
a blessing or a curse? Reading about their powers, I was reminded of Rogue from
X-Men, who has powers she can’t use without hurting the people around her. One
of the characters ‘Crash,’ for example, has the power to destroy any form of
electricity, though is simultaneously harmed by electricity whenever she is
around it. ‘Anonymous’ has the ability to make anyone forget him even if they’ve
just had a full conversation with him, though he has little choice as to when
he’s forgotten or who forgets him. His whole family forgot he existed, and the
Zeroes are constantly forgetting there’s a sixth member in their team, and… Wait,
who was I talking about again? (Ha-ha, see what I did there?) A third character, ‘Scam,’ has a separate
voice within himself that knows everything about everyone around him, and
everything they want to hear, whether he knows the person or not. This means that
he can open his mouth and words simply tumble out, which is rarely a useful
thing and generally creates more problems than it solves. In fact, this is the
central crux of the story, whereby over a year ago, ‘Scam’ lost control of this
voice and tore the Zeroes to shreds by mocking their biggest, most secret
insecurities. Later on, when ‘Scam’ tries to use his ability to get out of a
sticky situation, he ends up in much more trouble than he was in before, and
this is where the Zeroes have to reunite for the first time in over a year to
reluctantly save their former friend, Scam.
The story was fresh, fun, and completely original, though a
bit on the long side. I’m guessing this was the result of having three authors
who all had lots of ideas and wanted to have all of them down in one
book. While I enjoyed the originality of the characters and the context, I personally
would have liked to have known more about the characters and how they got their
powers in the first place. Unlike Spiderman, who everybody knows was bitten by
a radioactive spider, neither we nor the characters know how their powers came
to be. But I guess this mystery and others will be revealed in a future sequel,
which I believe is already underway. For me, this was a 3/5 book, and if you’re
not one who likes to be left off the bandwagon, you’d best jump on now.
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