Third Class Superhero

Third Class Superhero

3.47 of 5 stars 3.47  ·  rating details  ·  354 ratings  ·  80 reviews
Charles Yu experiments with form and genre to explore the stories we tell ourselves while navigating contemporary life. In "Third Class Superhero," a would- be good guy must come to terms with the darkness in his heart. A couple living in the Luxury Car Commercial subdivision in "401(k)" are disappointed when their exotic vacation turns into a Life Insurance/Asset Manageme...more
Paperback, 173 pages
Published September 5th 2006 by Mariner Books
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Amanda
_Third Class Superhero_ is a stellar debut collection of short stories from Charles Yu. Yu's style is really fresh and intelligent. Most of the stories read as hybrids texts: think short story crossed with tv script, math equation, commercial or brand ad, and prose poem. Sometimes, I felt, though, that the style overtook the story such as in "401(k)" and "The Man Who Became Himself." The highlights in this collection are "Third Class Superhero,"My Last Days As Me," "Realism," and "Autobiographic...more
Andi Alexander
Upon reading Third Class Superhero, two things happened: 1) I fell madly, deeply, acutely in love. 2) I became hideously angry at the world.. I assume due to a resentment toward the society we live in and the amount of people who would be left confused by Yu's short stories when they so obviously spell out the mundane parts of our every day lives... in the most creative ways possible.

To say Yu's book changed me would be an understatement. I felt as though I walked away a solid five years senior...more
wrench
I feel like I forgot to read the back and then in my vagueness failed to realise that this is short stories... Anyway, long story short I only like short stories when I know they are about to happen.
I think maybe it was because the first story read like it was setting up an entire novel and I was expecting an entire novel that made me disappointed.
But also, there are some really good stories in it.
I think it's difficult to really say much about books of short stories because they are individual...more
Thurston Hunger
Oct 17, 2010 Thurston Hunger rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Yu Mother, although that sounds worse than it should
I heard Yu on the radio, and decided to check out some of his work. The science student lapsing to fiction is always hard to pass up (wish there were more lapsing the reverse direction, but that is definitely upstream if not in fact illegal, and "The Kite Runner" doesn't count).

Anyways, my short review here is: Omni Magazine, wherefore art thou?

Yu's extremely short stories are ideas teased out like cotton candy to occupy a larger space than they will fill inside you once you've devoured them. If...more
Andrew Liptak
A forthcoming book caught my eye last month: How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe, by Charles Yu. It had a slick cover, and I got my hands on a copy to review. While I was waiting, I did a bit of background research on the author, coming up with only one other work to his name, Third Class Superhero, a collection of short stories. Yu, who was selected by the National Book Foundation as one of the ’5 under 35′ authors to watch in 2007, and seems to be a promising writer to keep an e...more
Benjamin Whitmer
Original review at INDenverTimes.

The protagonist of the title story of Charles Yu’s brilliant high-concept short story collection, Third Class Superhero, is a sad case. Known as Moisture Man, he is able to pull up to 2 gallons of water out of the atmosphere and shoot it at bad guys in a stream, a gentle mist or a ball. It’s not very impressive as superpowers go, but he’s tried to make the best of it. Now and then, those of his friends with higher classes of superpowers even allow him to tag alon...more
Nancy
How did this book find me, and, more to the point, how did I survive it?

I've turned 50? Check.

My mom is slipping toward the end her life? Check.

Now is a the time I should be telling stories to her, if not HER story? Check.

I don't know how to tell her story, much less end it? Check?

I know there are plot points in her life, in my life, I'd like to tie up in a satisfying narrative, but can't? Have faced there will always be things unsaid even though we're both alive and in touch and speaking? Chec...more
Jama
In one extremely self-referential story in the short story collection, the narrator mocks realism and declares "I have to leave out the details, I have to find the essence, search for the missing middle. I have to keep this general. I have to find the secret at the center of our story. Then I will be able to tell it." That is a very good description of the stories contained in this collection.

You might remember the advice to "show, not tell" your story. I don't think Yu agrees. Maybe it's true t...more
Kelly Maybedog Hawkins
I started out liking this book. By the end I was actually angry. The first story was very good. The second was as well, although I thought to myself, "some similar themes here." The third: "Hmm, this is a trend, same themes." The fourth: "Oh, this is different. Oh wait, here we are again." And so forth.

Every story in this collection covers all or most of the following topics: middle-aged angst, middle-aged emotional numbness, cookie-cutter middle-aged lives, disconnection with self that increase...more
David
A nice one day read while at home recuperating.

Most of the stories in this collection are clever and fun. Some are more fun and some are too clever. Charles is bright, no doubt about it, but times it has echos of pretension. His one story, Realism, is written discussing realism in a meta-meta fiction way. I get it - your smart. On the other hand there are some that his intelligence pays dividends. Both 32.05864991% (the percentage that is a maybe) and 401(k) are both intellectual but clever and...more
John
Fine Literary Debut from One of Our Best Young American Writers

Inventive, smart and funny immediately come to mind with regards to "Third Class Superhero", the debut short story collection from Charles Yu, which playfully mixes genres as diverse as scientific technical writing, mainstream fiction, plays, comic books, and fantasy. The title story itself is well worth the price of admission for this short story collection; a melancholy saga about a would be superhero's struggle to gain respect amo...more
Michael Larson
This is a fascinating collection of stories that is comic and morose in equal measure. The deadpan presentation of even the most absurd scenarios brought to mind George Saunders or David Foster Wallace, but Yu definitely is a flavor all his own.

The stories feel like formulas for understanding the meaning of existence. Yu takes a potentially comedic premise (life as a sitcom, life as a lame superhero, etc.), and then treats it as realistically as possible, exposing the harsh reality underlying ev...more
John
Charles Yu's "Third Class Superhero" is a collection of short stories, with only the title first story in the superhero genre. This is a fine thing indeed, as Charles Yu is at his best when bending form, presenting stories as game manuals, mathematical story problems, advertisements, and other technical or cultural mediums that gain power when presenting emotional material. Charles Yu recalls David Foster Wallace's concern with with the individual at work, as well as exploring the strange union...more
Julie
I read parts of all 11 short stories but only finished the last 3 in the book. Sometimes I like the way this author writes, but sometimes it feels like he keeps writing the same introspective story over and over. He has some really beautiful lines/wisdom in the last 3 stories. I remember one part about smiles in "Man of Quiet Desperation" on. p 139. I appreciated his calculations about probability and how men and women think differently about relationships in the story with the 32% title. The la...more
John Lee
Having read Charles Yu's debut novel, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, I knew that his short stories would be just as absurd and unconventional, but I don't think I went quite far enough with my expectations. Each story in this collection has a different quirk: some in the form, some in the content, some in the presentation. The short story format is ultimately well-suited to these eccentricities, as no experiment is long enough to get extremely tedious. The chances Yu takes d...more
Ketan Shah
May 14, 2012 Ketan Shah added it
Shelves: fiction
Reads more like a set of writing experiments than an actual short story collection. The title story is very good though. I preferred his novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe Proof . If you're looking for work that's eclecticv with some SF overtones you can also try Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others Stories of Your Life and Others
Marsha
While the first story was brimming with humor over its hero’s moral and financial dilemmas, the other stories were less than appealing. Dealing with page after page of existential angst made for fascinating philosophy but not particularly riveting reading. The recursive tale of a woman who is dying while reading a book and demanding her son write her into a better story is more a writing exercise than good writing.

Mr. Yu manages to avoid total incoherence or incomprehensibility in this work of s...more
Parksy
So i'd written an extended review, and Goodreads ATE IT when i submitted it... that'll teach me to highlight and copy my text before submitting a review!

anyway, much too lazy to rewrite it out.
Gist: loved his full novel How to live safely in a Science Fictional Universe. This book had a couple of short stories I loved, and a couple that didn't quite resonate.

Really enjoyed: Third Class Superhero and 32.05864991%. Both excellent short stories.

Would definitely recommend this author, and will conti...more
Taylor
There's a problem here. On the one hand, I'm utterly infatuated with Yu's ability to toy with style, to create meaning in so many ways within one short story collection. On the other hand, Yu focuses so much on the style of his stories, how to make them creative, unique, that the actual story, the important part, gets lost in his experiments.

Ironically, the story for which this collection is titled is both the strongest and the most straight-forward. I do like Yu's experiments, I just wish he ha...more
Speedtribes
Here's a book I grabbed because of the really awesome cover.

This was well written, if a bit dry in the sense that almost every story was more exploratory with its form than its content. Taking in mind that the content mainly deals with mediocrity as seen in middle class, self-pitying men, it's actually a good thing that the 'tone' of the text is so removed from the emotional aspects. I'd have been disgusted with the indulgent emo long before I got past the second page, otherwise.

Technically, it...more
Ryan Adair
It is really hard for me to describe my feelings about this book. Yu writes well, and each of these short stories are heart-wrenching, sometimes funny, emotionally disturbing, and extremely honest. Many of them struck a cord in my heart, revealing the ordinariness of life and the way we often mask it, living superficially. So to borrow Frederick Barthelme's words from the back cover, "It's a delight to read someone who realizes that life in the world is not as simple as it is often made to seem....more
Darell Schmick
A book of shorts that show off Yu's charm as a writer...I don't know. I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much if I hadn't read his most recent book before picking this one up. There were a noteworthy shorts: the melancholy me, the science-minded couple who couldn't compute the variable of a child entering their lives, and of course the tale of "moisture man"...but there were a few that almost disappointed. I suppose one must expect to take the lumps with the good.
Malrubius
This is an amazing collection of short stories. I was looking for something different, and I found it in Third Class Superhero. Yu eschews nearly every narrative convention, especially realism, and comments on doing so as he writes. Despite the utter disorienting profundity of the language and narrative, the stories are poignant, human, and down-to-earth, dealing in the complexities of every day life. I loved it. What a brilliant writer!
Steve
In interesting collection of short stories about what we may alternately call "the human condition" and the "human psyche." Reminds me in style a great deal of the short stories of Mark Leyner from the late '80s, if not the bizarre worlds Leyner created. Easy to read, easy to read quickly, and at times a bit of a downer when you actually READ what is on the page. That said, it was worth the time.
Sara
As a literary nerd AND a superhero/comics geek, this book hits the spot. Like his later work, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, this book isn't really about superheroes or anything else so much as it is an examination of the way we see ourselves and the way we interact within our families, our friendships, and society at large. But then, a great many graphic novels and comic series examine this same issue, asking how we fit into the world and how we deal with our own strangenes...more
Andrew Johnson
I decided to read this after falling in love with How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe. Yu's debut work explores similar themes, but it's just as well-written and intellectually stimulating. It's also very depressing. It's a thought-provoking read, though, and it's short enough that you can get through it in just a few hours.
Shannon Barr
I really liked the first story in the set of short stories, the 'lazy' superhero theme and what and how the character feels at the older stages of his life, but after that first tale I got less and less interested. Perhaps a full novel expansion on just the first character's life would've been just what was needed to save this book for me.
Colleen
So this was good, but the effort to be creative and "different" got annoying. I had to read in short bursts or it just got too boring. The stories by themselves were good though, and they had some good insights and wonderful moments of philosophy. Definitely came across as a writers first go at a book. Good, but with the potential to be better.
Tim Priebe
Surprisingly blah. I didn't realize it was a collection of short stories ahead of time. The story the actual collection is named after was great, but the rest ranged from okay to bizarrely weird, and not in a good way. This was Yu's first published book, so I'm hoping any future ones he has published are more like his second book, not this one.
Edgar
The fact that they made a book about a rejected superhero just make me want to laugh. Believe or not this book was really good because it describes how to become a superhero and also how to fail the superhero exam a lot of times. These kind of first person stories always get my attention especially the ones about life.
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Charles Yu lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Michelle, and their two children.

He has received the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award for his story collection Third Class Superhero, and he has also received the Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award. His work has been published in the Harvard Review, The Gettysburg Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Mississippi Review, and Mid-American Review, am...more
More about Charles Yu...
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe Sorry Please Thank You: Stories Standard Loneliness Package Hero Absorbs Major Damage Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury

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“I felt melancholy, I felt joy, I felt dread, I felt a sadness so deep it cannot be described in words. I felt emotions that have not been given names, I felt emotions that have been given the wrong names, I saw what it meant to feel and I saw that it was all the same feeling and I felt big feelings, the old feelings, the ones before language, before the mind had language, before the mind had learned to tell a fake story called consciousness and developed anxiety when it invented time, and danger, and risk, and probability, and the future.” 3 people liked it
“People are dying and my generation just does not care. Including me. But I want to care. I really want to. I want to care so bad.” 2 people liked it
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