“Unpowered,” genius Brad lives in the shadow of his legendary father & hotshot brother. When he’s transferred to an alternative program, his new friends cause him to question his beliefs in what constitutes heroes and villains in a new way.

Sibling rivalry is natural. Brad Baron is used to not measuring up to older brother Blake. Even though Brad is a genius, he can't seem to catch up to Blake's superhero status in the elite Justice Force. After making some new friends, Brad begins to find a dangerous new power of his own.

Brad Baron has a lot to live up to: a father who was a superhero, a brother currently on one of the most popular superhero teams and a genius mother. Enrolled at an elite school for children of superheros, Brad is a disappointment. With the exception of his genius level intelligence, he has nothing else super to recommend him: no super strength, no super speed, no flying, nothing. After being seriously injured during gym class by another student (Brad recovers, thanks to advanced surgical procedures), Brad is mortified to discover that the offending student wasn't even punished for breaking Brad's neck, and instead was given bonus points for the class. Shortly thereafter, Brad is transferred to the school within a school for students who can't make it at the regular school because they lack any superpowers. After transferring, Brad meets Layla, Javier, Boots and Peanut, all washouts from the regular school. Working together they become a team of villains, but the most astonishing changes happen to Brad when Layla reveals that he is a very powerful telepath--a superpower banned because of its potential for misuse. Brad and the rest of his crew embark upon a villainous crusade, and uncover the true genesis of supervillains, as well as some startling surprises about Brad's family.
Overall, "V is for Villain," was a fast fun read that highlighted the dark side of the superhero. As Brad and his crew slowly uncover the truth behind what's really happening, I found myself cheering for them as underdogs. The style of the book, complete with footnotes and a glossary, was very accessible and easy to read. I can definitely see teens who root for the superhero and for the underdog being excited by Brad's journey from outcast, second class citizen to villain. I was caught up within the first few pages, feeling as indignant as Brad when the other student hurts him, but doesn't get punished and as compelled as Brad to figure out just what's going on with his brother and his mom. Successfully combining the superhero/supervillain origin story with a mystery makes this a great book for all readers.

Julie K. / Marathon County Public Library
Find this book in our library catalog.

( )

This is the story of the other side. This is the story of how the world is complicated and not just black and white, heroes and villains. It's also quite the superhero/super villain romp of a story.

This is the tale of two brothers, Blake, a guy with tons of powers and is in the Justice Force, one of the many superhero teams out there 'saving the world'. Then there's his younger brother Brad, who aside from higher than normal intelligence has no powers at all.

Brad goes to the same school that Blake did once upon a time, but he seems to be the target of the students and teachers alike, and then he gets transferred to a different part of the school and his life starts to go sorta crazy.

He meets a girl named Layla and her friends. They have some not quite mainstream ideas and they want to do something about it. She was an interesting character, as was Brad. Even Blake turned into a multi-layered character of a sort. That was one of the very good things about this book for sure, the uniqueness of all the characters. Really the only character that I never really got into was Brad and Blake's mom. She was weirdly underdeveloped.

Another great thing about the book was the world building, it was totally awesome. I will be seriously sad if there isn't some sort of sequel to this book too. I will say that I never really got used to the footnotes. I understand why they were there and they were definitely needed, but every time I had to stop to read one it pulled me from the story quite a bit.

Still, overall I really loved this book. Telling the stories of Villains is the current trend in all sorts of media types from TV (Regina and Rumple on Once Upon a Time), to Movies (Maleficent), and this book is a nice addition to the genre.

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of Disney Book Group. ( )