I'm a big fan of fictional rewrites of history, especially those that offer plausible alternative explanations for the historical record. With a keen eye on the history and culture of the era, the author is able to make a case for why regional identities seem so firm, yet prone to changing over the course of a few months or years, or why the 80's seemed...dented, culturally.
A superhero origin, of sorts, this book was a lot of fun to read, without as much focus on the negative angst and more heavily zeroed in on the joys of finding out one is actually special, especially at a young age.