Queeroes by Steven Bereznai

Title: Queeroes
Author: Steven Bereznai
Publisher: Lethe Press
Length: Novel/ 250 pages
Buy the book: Amazon

Blurb:

When strange powers emerge in a group of gay teens in the town of Nuffim, their lives are forever changed. Troy is a closeted jock who starts to sense other people’s emotions. His geeky brother, Gibbie, develops super strength. Flamboyant Chad unleashes his inner animal, while his gal pal Mandy turns invisible.

”I can totally use my power to psych out my competition,” says Troy. ”My night vision will make cruising guys super easy,” exclaims Chad. ”I am so going to eavesdrop on people’s conversations,” exclaims Mandy. ”Uh, I was thinking we’d make the world a better place,” offers Gibbie. They get the chance when their schoolmates Devon and Liza use their own unique abilities to remake the student body in a darker image.

Review:

Queeroes is a clever and humorous look at high school outcasts that suddenly gain superpowers. The plot is decent and offers some hilarious scenes and dialogue with interesting characters. The issues and problems all teenagers experience are still present to the changed teens so now there is an added level of drama to the mix. The narrative has some incredible high points but it also hits some low points, most especially with the melodramatic and idealistic ending. The story is clearly filled with life lessons and points about the treatment and mindset of those picked on and outcast kids from high school, which are largely successful even as they are blatant. However Queeroes is a fast paced read with some great charm that is worth reading.

The story is about a group of teenagers that develop super powers after drinking contaminated water. There are classic good guys and bad guys as each teen tries to figure out how to deal with their newfound powers. Some are inherently evil and hatch clichéd plots to kill people while others want to save the world. However life isn’t that easy for these teens as they still deal with unrequited crushes, emerging sexuality, identity crises, high school teasing, and a myriad of problems that plague all teens but seem magnified now.

The cast is rather large with half a dozen enhanced teens and a variety of regular teens that are mentioned and moved around the story. This is both good and bad as none of the characters are fully fleshed out due to such a big cast and fast paced story. Each of the teens seems to play off a typical stereotype from the Dungeons and Dragon nerd to the stoic jock, the Asian princess, flamboyant gay cheerleader, and so on. The characters do grow somewhat over the course of the story as each is changed forever by their powers. Some grow more comfortable in their skin, some go through identity and sexuality crises, and some develop new relationships. So the various teens do grow and mature over the course of the story but not without considerable setbacks and drama.

The story itself is very fast paced with a lot of witty dialogue and comic actions. For example, one of my favorite lines of the book when the nerd rushes over the house of his unrequited crush and worries how he’ll explain he knew the address:

Google Maps, he told himself. Just say Google Maps. It wasn’t stalking until there was a restraining order.

There are numerous other great one-liners and witty comments that make the story quick and enjoyable to read. The plot often reads very similar to a comic book as the teens with powers that turn evil feel very cliché with over the top actions. They are uninhibited and have no boundaries, seeking acceptance from each other while the good guys fight amongst themselves and struggle to define their powers within boundaries. The powers are interesting and fit well with each character lending a nice twist on the theme while some of the dialogue and scenes created are laugh out loud funny. A lot of the scenes have great charm and charisma with some recognizable elements. The story mostly manages to offer the life lessons on outcasts without being preachy even as these points are clear and very obvious.

Unfortunately the book takes a wrong turn with the ending that is incredibly melodramatic and over the top. The great evil plot is classic and predictable yet the way the good guys save the day is not only ridiculous but also here the life lessons are aggressively pushed. The long monologues and diatribes seem to reinforce the outcast theme to the point of redundancy and the final scene is idealistic and unnecessary. The story may be fictional and out to show outcasts and their emotions, yet always manages to evoke a sense of realism and honesty into the telling. Life is not immediately perfect for any of these teens and thus the ending seems to throw all of this away to give a perfect, happy ending that sits at odds with most of the story. In fact this kind of ruined the book in many ways for me and unfortunately left me with an unsatisfied feeling when I had enjoyed a good bit of the good up until then.

Queeroes is a good book with elements that will resonate with readers of all ages. The feelings of isolation and confusion are not unique to teenagers and the whimsy injected into the dialogue lightens what can be a dark story. The narrative isn’t always light and breezy and several difficult concepts and actions are tackled but the ideas and characters are thought provoking. While not wholly successful, in large part due to the ending, Queeroes is a good book that’s definitely worth reading.