Title: Heroes and VillainsAuthor: Donna Marie Oldfield
Genre: Dystopian / fantasy/ superhero
Pages: 280
Series: The sequel to out of time
publisher: unknown
Rating: 3 stars
Teenage superhero Scarlett Shortt is stuck in an
alternate timeline that's growing more dystopian by the minute, and now it
looks like her days could be numbered.
Three months have passed since Out of Time #1 and
Scarlett, Dylan and their friends are living life on the run after being forced
out of their cosy London house.
They flee to Scarlett's home city of Manchester, which
has been run into the ground under evil Prime Minister Goulden's regime. Much
of the area has been destroyed and things are set to get even worse thanks to
the PM's plans for cruel weapons, segregation and war.
As if things aren't bleak enough, their new friend,
Mason, has a premonition that Scarlett will be killed and millions will die in
a separate attack. Then there's the added complication of a deadly new foe, The
Echidna, and a team of supervillains that features some very familiar faces.
Can the young superheroes stop millions of innocent people
from dying? How will Scarlett deal with predictions of her death and will
moralistic leader Dylan toughen up and accept that the rules have changed in
this harsh new world?
I have to say that having been
so hooked on the first book Out of Time,
I was somewhat disappointed with this sequel. I always find it hard to write
reviews where the books don’t quite match up to my expectations, so please, (as
usual) bear with me.
Don’t get me wrong under no
circumstances did I dislike this book. But it’s hard not to compare it to the
first one.
For starters, I thought that the
plot seemed a little less thought out and more disjunctive than in the first
book. It seemed to leap from battle to battle and argument to argument with not
much substance in between. It was fairly easy to follow, which was a good
constant that remained from Out of time;
however, it made the battles seem less dramatic and exciting.
Another thing I found slightly
odd was that the romance that had so many sparks in the first book sort of
seemed to fizzle out in the second. Don’t get me wrong; it was still there,
which was nice. There just seemed to be no chemistry making it slightly
unexciting.
The characters were still
fabulous. I loved them all and I thought they did seem to develop and change
more in this book, which was great. The Echidna was an especially interesting
and well-built character and I thought that the problems faced again were
relatable and made you want to be the characters, a vital element which kept
the book alive.
The thing I liked the least is
hard to explain, but I’ll do my best. I didn’t like how each character was
introduced and threaded into the story. As my old English teacher would’ve said
: ‘There was a lot of telling not showing”. Rather than letting the reader
remember the characters by showing the reader their power or some aspect of
their character that the reader would remember them by from Out of time, It seemed that we were just
told the characters name and their power, which after a while (as there are so
many characters) got a bit repetitive. I don’t know if any of that made sense
but hopefully if you take the time to read the book, you will understand my
meaning.
Having said this about the book
I actually do think it’s worth a read. I’d like you to remember that 3 stars
aren’t bad. 2.5 is halfway to 5, meaning this book is above average and I think
it is worth reading it as I still wanted to find out what happened to all the
characters and if the situation had been resolved.
Happy Reading,
Hebe x
