The Rise of Renegade X by Chelsea M. Campbell - Review

My colleague, Antonia, loved, loved, loved this book so I'm posting her review (and yes, I started it as soon as I read this).

In Golden City the most profitable tourist draw is the large population of super heroes and super villains. Tourists flock there in hopes of catching a glimpse of a superhero hunting down a supervillain, or maybe even witnessing an epic battle. And one of the best tickets in town, if you can swing it, is to a sixteenth birthday party for a superhero or supervillain kid. For it is on this day that the children of heroes and the children of villains have a letter appear on their left thumb to identify them, a V for villains and an H for heroes.

Our story begins on the night of Damien Locke's 16th birthday. As the only son of the supervillain known as The Mistress of Mayhem, Damien is eagerly awaiting the Big Change when his thumb print will change. But as the clock strikes midnight, the unthinkable happens - Damien's thumb print does change, but it does not change into the expected V, but rather, the apocryphal X, which can mean only one thing - his mother, supervillain extraordinaire, managed to get herself knocked up by a super hero, during a brief tryst in a subway restroom.

Damien is horrified. Damien is repulsed. Damien has no idea what on earth he is meant to do now. But certain things start to make sense. This might explain why he let the animals his mother was using for scientific experiments escape from their cages. It explains why his mother has always been relatively concerned about his tendency toward kindness. You see, Damien has a problem, he has superpowers, but he cannot be consistantly good, or consistantly evil. His embarrasing tendancy to do the right thing leaves him an outcast in villain society, but his knack for self preservation makes him unable to be embraced by the heroes he has always loathed.

This is one of the funniest books I have read in a while. As if a sixteen year old supervillain didn't have enough to worry about, he's not even a true villain. How on earth is he supposed to figure out where he belongs.