Review: Nemesis 1 Dreadnought by April Daniels

Nemesis 1 Dreadnought by April Daniels

It’s quite an impressive superhero story that manages to make the largest and most heroic battles happen not between hero and villain, but between the young heroine and her family and supposed friends. Danny Tozer is a young person with a secret. The world thinks he’s a boy, but she knows she’s really a girl stuck in the wrong body. Then she witnesses the death of the world’s greatest superhero, Dreadnought, and he passes his powers on to her and the first thing the powers do is rearrange her body to be the perfect her. In just a couple of minutes, Danny’s fondest wish comes true. She has the female body she has always wanted. Unfortunately, no one else seems happy for her.

 

A major portion of this book focus on Danny having to deal with withering rejection and hostility from her family and friends. She discovers that having superpowers didn’t change the dynamics she’s grown up with. She’s still an abused young woman who has to learn to stand up and fight for herself. It’s very sad that some of those who reject her are the supposed good guys—members of the Legion Pacifica who for a variety of reasons don’t want the powers of Dreadnought to belong to a fifteen-year-old girl. One of the most disturbing characters in the novel is one of these supposed heroes who is enraged at Danny’s physical transformation. The depths she will sink to over the course of the book are horrifying.

 

But all is not bleak. Danny begins to learn to use her powers and some of those encounters—especially the rescue of a passenger jet—were extraordinarily well written. She also makes a friend in another young hero and together they set about the task of trying to avenge the death of Dreadnought. In doing so, they uncover a terrifying threat to the entire world. As one would expect of a superhero novel—Danny must reach deep inside herself to find the hero the reader has always known her to be.

 

This is really an extraordinary novel which will touch you on multiple levels. I can’t wait to read the next book in the series.

 

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