We Could Be Heroes

by Mike Chen, Emily Woo Zeller (Narrator)

AN EXTRAORDINARY AND EMOTIONAL ADVENTURE ABOUT UNLIKELY FRIENDS AND THE POWER OF CHOOSING WHO YOU WANT TO BE.

Jamie woke up two years ago in an empty apartment with no memory and only a few clues to who he might be, and also with the power to read other people's memories. In the meantime, he's become the Mind Robber, holding up banks for quick cash. Similarly, Zoe is searching for her past, and using her new extraordinary abilities of speed and strength...to deliver fast food. And occasionally beat up bad guys, if she feels like it.

When the two meet in a memory-loss support group, they realize they are each other's best chance at discovering what happened to them. The quest will take them deep into a medical conspiracy that is threatening to spill out and wreak havoc on their city, and maybe the country. As the two get past their respective barriers, they'll realize that their friendship is the thing that gives them the greatest power.




RUNNING TIME => 9hrs. and 45mins.

©2021 Mike Chen (P)2021 Harlequin Enterprises, Limited

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Superheroes, Audiobook, Adult, Contemporary

Audible Audio

First published January 26, 2021

About the author

Mike Chen is the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Brotherhood, Here and Now and Then, Light Years From Home, and other novels, in addition to Star Trek comics. He has covered geek culture for sites such as Nerdist, Tor.com, and StarTrek.com, and in a different life, covered the NHL. A member of SFWA, Mike lives in the Bay Area with his wife, daughter, and many rescue animals. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @mikechenwriter

Reviews

[Nilufer Ozmekik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two misfits whose memories are erased turning into reluctant heroes: a mind robber and greatest fae combining their powers for greater good but their main motivation is discovering who they really are!

Well: I personally enjoyed the diversity and LGBT representation of the story with its relatable MCs Zoe and Jamie who team up to find their mysterious origins. They’re not born to be heroes but now they are forced to adapt in their changing lives but forming a proper future life depends on where they come from and what their real purpose is.

It’s a balanced paced, intriguing reading with promising world building and a little weak, flat villain characterization ( yes I visualized someone more powerful with his evil laughs and great schemes to destroy the universe)

Overall: it was more than okay, smart, riveting read! I enjoyed the previous works of the author a little more. But I respect his choice to try something new about heroes with super powers theme.

I’m rounding up my 3.5 stars to 4 entertaining, moving, action packed stars!

Special thanks to NetGalley and HARLEQUIN/ Mira for sharing this digital arc with me in exchange my honest review.

[Althea ☾ · Rating 4 out of 5]

1/26/21: happy book birthday!! (aka release date)

GIVE ME MORE PLATONIC RELATIONSHIPS IN LITERATURE. thank you.

This book was such a wholesome story under complicated circumstances and I was so attached to the main characters T_T

— overall thoughts: 4.5 —

“Extraordinary comes in many forms. You never realized that, and that pushed her to find it elsewhere.”

I loved that this wasn’t a romance, which might be a deal breaker for some people but it was so refreshing to read about the platonic relationship between the characters in the midst of the chaos. I feel like we need more of that in literature. As much as I love a good romance, there’s something heart warming about friends just being friends in a story that doesn’t take itself too seriously. But still made my heart soft.

We Could Be Heroes is an Adult Science Fiction/Contemporary standalone about a vigilante and a bank robber who lost their memories. I am sucker for stories about lost memories. The endearing characters hooked me from the start and I really did find myself smiling while reading.

Neither of our mains are what I would call a ~hero or a ~villain. Maybe antiheroes would be the grey area but at the core of it all, they are flawed people who want to make the most out of the cards they were dealt with. Jamie is definitely that person who just wants to escape into an island while reading books and drinking coffee with his cat (this is canon and honestly, this would be me). On the other hand, Zoe goes about arresting “bad guys” like… said bank robber. They meet in a memory-loss support group and the action-packed story takes off from there.

If there is such thing, this would be the book equivalent to a popcorn movie with diversity and LGBTQ+ rep (not a main focus tho). I do tend to look for antagonists with more depth rather and the tone of the story does take a different turn from what it was in the beginning.

Nonetheless, the ending was extremely satisfying with how everything came full circle and as a huge fan of all the Superhero CW shows, I loved this. Besides, the David Bowie and Alesso song plays in my head every time I see this book. It was so perfectly my type of story.

↣ Would definitely recommend if you are looking for an easy read and you’re not looking for a romance but enjoy good friendships. Especially stories with humor and a nostalgic factor. ↢

*Thank you to the publicist at -Harlequin/MIRA- for sending me an ARC for review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*

-----------------
I truly am weak for friendship themes

two people who have no memories with superpowers but one is a vigilante and one is a villain? dichotomy between "good" and "bad"? I also see "pansexual villain" everything about this is intriguing to me.

this is like if you flipped addie larue and gave them superpowers

[Madison Warner Fairbanks · Rating 3 out of 5]

We Could Be Heroes by Mike Chen
A comic book in a novel format. Fantasy.
A man with the ability to erase memories. A woman that can fly (kind of) and has super strength
and catches criminals. Neither one of them know who they really are. They meet in an anonymous support meeting and become friends.

I expected something extraordinary. What I got was comic book characters including the evil genius doing crazy experiments along with a moral lesson.
The characters by definition were a bit flat to me. They are missing their memories. On the opposing side, a little to much of factory-electric-mad scientists detail. I wanted to like the main character more but there wasn’t enough in the story to endear me to them.

Entertaining in a graphic comic simile.

On the evil experiments:
“And who wanted to eat electricity anyway? That sounded terrible. Even if it was in the form of electric tacos.”

I received a copy of this from NetGalley.

[La Crosse County Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

We Could Be Heroes (2021) is not your typical superhero story, which I think is why I enjoyed it so much! The good versus evil binary often found in these stories is mostly absent here, with our two "heroes" (Zoe and Jamie) trying to recover mysterious holes in their memories first and foremost. Saving the day is far from both of their minds as they try to navigate their respective day-to-day lives. Not to mention our "villain" is a scientist out to cure world hunger.

Our two misfit main characters first meet in a memory loss support group, and from there, it was interesting to watch their friendship and respect for each other grow throughout the story. I loved that the dynamic here was more platonic rather than romantic, where romances sometimes can feel forced. It made them both more relatable to me. Also, I think it would make their team-up less fun and interesting if the author had chosen to go the "slow-burn" rivals to lovers path instead.



During the process of trying to figure out who they really are (their "origin stories," if you will), these unlikely friends bury the hatchet and become reluctant heroes when it is discovered that their city is in danger.

I would highly recommend We Could Be Heroes for anyone looking for a good story that bucks most of the tropes of the superhero genre.

-Cora



See also:

Renegades (2017) by Marissa Meyer

Find this book and other titles within our catalog.

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Real Rating: 3.5* of five, rounded up because there's no way I don't want to read his next book!

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: First, read this:

“I’ll figure something out” probably wound up being the last sentence said by a lot of people in difficult scenarios.
–and–
“If you're the one everyone relies on, if you take on people's burdens, sometimes there's just not that much left of you.”

There. That's the emotional core of this read, as I see it anyway; how can you live up to your best and still do your life's miscellany? Who gets to drain you of your reserves with your permission, and why?

Answering those questions outside the framework of a Romantic Relationship is the central conflict in the story of Zoe and Jamie. They aren't, and don't become, lovers; they are friends. They are bonded by something weird, that is being without memories but with superpowers. And they are very, very unlikely to remain friends when their pasts recrudesce.

Screw that, says my imaginary avi of Author Chen, Real Life has lots of examples of friends who don't fit! He is, of course, correct, and he makes sure that the story develops in such a way that they must come together to use their superpowers but only together will they work to stop...a villain who wants to feed the whole, overcrowded world...?!

Wait. What?

Yes, that's right folks, we're in the era of "superheroes aren't so great" fiction! If you've paid me the slightest bit of attention, you already know I adore Natalie Zina Walschots' HENCH for its unflinching take-down of the Cult of the Superhero. It is greatly to my taste. I think the whole MCU and DCEU are, in a word, brummagem. But there's something irresistible in the stories available to tell in them...Irresistible Force meeting Immovable Object can be played for laughs, for tears, for intensity or resolution. It is always going to find takers. But I, perverse old bastard that I am, want to find takers-on instead.

Author Chen's chops are up to it. What he doesn't seem to want to do, however, is explore pansexual Jamie's sexuality. It's not even there, it's simply referred to. If one doesn't want to use the gun, don't bring the gun out. I'm not asking for details, I'm asking for more than a mention of him having had a husband. This is the 21st century, not the 20th...don't tell me we're going there and we're not.

But that was not a fatal flaw in a story that gave me morally gray, but more goal-oriented than selfishly motivated, characters overcoming not only a handicap but a lifetime's conditioning to work together to solve a problem they could only hope to really fix if they worked together. That was worth so much to me. In a deeply divided world, it needs saying again and again: Do you want to Be Right, or fix what's wrong?

I like Jamie's and Zoe's answers.

[Alana (semi ia) · Rating 5 out of 5]

*4.5 round to 5*
A book about flawed heroes, being friends, representation...and PLATONIC RELATIONSHIPS. Seriously, we need more of these. I know so many other reviews have stated this, but by god so am I because we so desperately need more books without romance. I could go on a RANT about this - about how platonic relationships should be valued just like romantic ones, about how mainstream media (including literature) doesn't include these enough...but I'll stop myself. This book, despite the obvious parts I love, have heroes you can't quite categorize as heroic - real, deeply-layered individuals who were a treat to read.

[Stephanie (Bookfever) · Rating 2 out of 5]

We Could Be Heroes by Mike Chen was one of those books that I liked but other than that it wasn't anything too special, in my honest opinion. I really wanted to like it so much more than I did but the story in general just left me wanting more, unfortunately. It was good enough to read once but that's where it stopped for me.

The book featured a hero and villain who have superhuman powers. Zoe a.k.a the Throwing Star, who has super speed, super strenght, can fly and who kicks criminals' ass and saves people. Then we have Jamie a.k.a. the Mind Robber, who has the ability to read and erase other people’s memories which he uses to rob banks. Both woke up two years ago with no memory of who they are and with these extraordinary abilities. They come together as unlikely allies to find out more about themselves and even start to become friends.

The book was a four star read for the first half of the book. I really liked it but around the 50% mark the story and characters started to lose my attention. It started to become draggy and sometimes just plain confusing.

Also in the invite hero it said that it "stars a pansexual villain" but there wasn't really anything mentioned in the story beyond Jamie having had a husband. That disappointed me a little. I'm not sure what I expected from the story but definitely more than I got. However I do like that at least it was a diverse story that included a woman of color as the hero as well as someone in the LGBTQ community that's definitely one of the high points for me with this book.

So would I recommend We Could Be Heroes by Mike Chen? Yes if you're really into superhero and character driven stories but I wouldn't say it's exacyly re-read worthy. It was a likable read but nothing spectacular.

[marta the book slayer · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you are looking for a simple science fiction read with great platonic relationships, you came to the right place!

Jamie and Zoe both have no recollection of their past. The only thing that's certain is that they have superpowers! Jamie can read minds and has been using his ability to rob banks, while Zoe has been using her speed and strength to fight the criminals in her city. Forced to attend a support group, an event occurs when they find out each held on to the same secret. Left with no one else to turn to but each other, they reluctantly join forces to uncover what might have happened to them.

I'd categorize this as a "ya" contemporary novel with small elements of science fiction. The character's ages and profanity take this slightly into the "adult" realm, however the writing and overall plot still makes me feel like this belongs in the "ya" category. Thus, I was a little disappointed by the surface level plot and character development. I enjoyed it for what it was and if you come in with similar exceptions you might have the same pleasant reading experience that I did.

∙
part of race against time challenge (aka read all 2021 releases before the year ends.)

[Sylvie {Semi-Hiatus} · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 out of 5 stars.

If I had to put this book in the Alignment Chart I would undoubtedly put this under the 'Chaotic Good' category. But of course that is just my personal opinion about the book.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this was an okay superhero-type adventure. By this point, we've already had a great deal of super-powered novels to go along with our super-powered movies, comics, video games, tv shows, and whatnot, so it really becomes a game to see A: how good the characters are, B: how good the base story is, C: how messed up the worldbuilding or power-particulars are.

In this case, it's just okay. A mild villain and a mild superhero, doing the road trip thing to relieve their amnesia. The particulars were fairly fun and the line-crossing between hero and villain was what really made this pretty decent, and the characters were solid.

So why aren't I falling all over this? Probably because it's coming late to the party. The closest books to this one, offhand, are the earlier awesome novels by Jackson Ford, starting with The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind, or even Brandon Sanderson's Steelheart series.

If you're into this kind of genre and devour everything like it, I'm sure you'll get a kick out of it.

[Diana Urban · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly fun story with delightfully flawed superheroes, exciting action, and satisfying character growth—not to mention moments that’ll make you laugh out loud. I have all my fingers crossed I’ll get to see this on screen someday!

[Rincey · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

A really fun take on superhero stories. Perfect action-filled, summer reading with just enough character development and twists to not make it boring

Watch me discuss this book in my May wrap up: https://youtu.be/ouTm4bZ6TQw

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

3:5 would make a fun TV show and kept me turning pages. Quite different than the other Chen books I’ve read and this has humor fit for a comic book super hero a la the first Batman TV series. The other novels had more depth of character and plot but this was good for what it is.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fun as an audioread, Emily Woo Zeller is a great narrator for this kind of story (see also: Doctor Aphra) and the back and forth POVs between the two superpowered protagonists never felt too forced.

If one must quibble I guess the ending had the heretofore quite ruthless antagonist do a pretty complete and rapid 180 back to the "good" side, but honestly it was refreshing that it didn't just devolve into a knockout, drag out "Boss Fight" so fair enough.

[Justine · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

I loved the premise, and Chen always has such an honest and genuine tone in his books, but in the end I just didn't care for this.

I much preferred A Beginning at the End, which demonstrates some similarly positive and affirming ideas in a better executed story.

[Tori (InToriLex) · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a soft sci-fi but definitely more a contemporary read. I could not get into this at all. Probably because I like my sci-fi hard and contemporaries rarely.

[Rae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Working on a blog tour post tonight for this hero-tastic book! Will put link to the post here once I’m finished! :)

___________________________

Check out my Blog Tour Post for this ARC here:
http://vicariouslyvoraciously.com/rev...


___________________________


 I began reading this ready for your average super hero story but that is not what I got. I got a story about your average humans who just happen to wake up with no recollection of who they were prior to opening their eyes, but with extraordinary abilities. What would you do if you were given special abilities? Would you use them for good or evil? Become the Villain or the Vigilante? Thats the big question our two MC's must ask themselves. What is their power better used for? Can they find it within themselves to do whatever it takes to justify the means of using their powers?

The difference in the dynamic of each character paired with the direction they each decide to take their powers in order to achieve what they think that they were meant to do makes for an epic battle between the good and the bad. But with Jamie not being a true villain, you feel like you really don't know who is right.. Which character is making the best of what they were given? It's a constant push and pull throughout the book that keeps you wondering to what side you lean. Its not until they find a common goal and they decide to work together that you get a glimpse of a bigger evil behind the scenes. And that right there was where the book takes off, and you just have to hang on for the ride.

I really enjoyed this book and think that it was a really fun book to kick off the new year with. At times like these, we could all use a hero or two to root for.  Its got some deep thoughts of good vs evil but at the same time is full of adventure and growth and excitement that keeps you reading just to see what happens next. It was light enough to not feel overwhelming but had enough depth to connect with these characters and care about what happens to them.  I am browsing other Mike Chen books to add to my TBR now!

[Kennedy Larson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was legitimately a comic book but in traditional book form. It started off really strong, but towards the end it fell flat for me!

[Lukasz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would you still be the same person if you could blank state yourself? Chen explores this idea in his fast-paced superhero adventure. The story revolves around an unexpected friendship between villainous Jamie Sorenson (aka Mind Robber) and vigilante Zoe Wang (aka Throwing Star).

After meeting at Memory Loss & Dementia Support Group, they discover they lost memory around the same time, two years ago. Zoe wants to learn about her past, Jamie wants to rob enough money to fly away to the Caribbean with his cat. They’re also dorks with no idea of what they’re doing.

I liked Chen’s lighthearted take on a hero/villain origin story. Zoe and Jamie’s interactions are endearing and funny. The story has enough twists to keep the reader’s attention. Unfortunately, the plot is rather thin and the motivations of bad guys remain unconvincing.

All told, a solid and entertaining read, but not the one I’ll remember for a long time.

Narration: I’ve listened to the audiobook. Emily Woe Zeller does a good job, especially for Zoe. Jamie, however, sounds like a victim of prolonged constipation. I had an issue with his voice but got used to it after a while.

[Era ➴]

EVERYWHERE WE GO
WE CAN HAVE ALL THAT WE EVER WANT
SWINGING LIKE ALI
KNOCKING OUT BODIES
STANDING ON TOP LIKE A CHAMPION
KEEP YOUR SILVER, GIVE ME THAT GOLD
YOU'LL REMEMBER WHEN I SAY
WE CAN BE HEROES
EVERYWHERE WE GO
KEEPING US DOWN IS IMPOSSIBLE
CAUSE WE'RE UNSTOPPABLE

sorry that's the first thing that pops into my head when I see this title I'll probably delete this

[Lata · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I liked Mike Chen’s previous books, they always felt a little shy of amazing. This time, I totally enjoyed this story of two extraordinary people, who find each other in a support group for people with memory problems, after one of them tries his best to avoid the other when they were in their “superhero” roles.
While their relationship is initially a bit rocky, the two agree to work together to unearth their lost memories and hopefully discover who they are, why they have powers, and why they can’t remember anything any further back than two years ago.
Over several attempts, they discover a plot in service of a larger ideal, and our main characters were altered by a shadowy organization.

The two characters drew me in and has me caring about them immediately. I loved the platonic friendship they developed and the contrasts between their behaviours. There was enough action and character moments to keep me happy and the ending was a satisfying progression for the main characters, though I was left with a few questions at the end.

[Katie.dorny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cheesy, to the point of nauseating, this was the book that had every cartoon comic stereotype dramatised to the point of yikes.

When two people meet at a memory loss meeting, they discover eerily similar flashbacks of a fragmented past. What follows is a race against time to uncover the system turning people extraordinary. Sounds cool right?

Wrong!! Could not be more wrong!!!

This started so strong but then really veered left so quick. Bland, boring and stereotypically cheesy it became plainly obvious 10 chapters before what was going to happen before it did.

A strong premise but bad execution here.

[Karen’s Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

The reason I enjoy Mike Chen’s books so much is because I seem to get really attached to his characters. And We Could Be Heroes was no exception.

I immediately was drawn to Jamie, a bank robber who awoke 2 years ago with no memories of his life before, but who discovered he was able to read other’s memories and erase whatever memories he chose. During his bank robberies, he would gently erase all memories of himself and the bank robberies.

Zoe was a little harder to warm to. She also woke up 2 years before with no memories but with super human strength and the ability to “hover”. Zoe decides to use her powers for good and becomes a vigilante.

Zoe and Jamie run into each other and decide to team up to get answers to their similar backgrounds.

And once Zoe and Jamie’s friendship starts, this is where I completely warmed up to Zoe. Together they made a great team... Eventually. And then they had a great friendship.

I finished this book in 2 sittings and couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.

*Thanks to Mira Books and Netgalley for the advance copy!*

[Lauren Stoolfire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

We Could Be Heroes by Mike Chen is an enthralling and diverse superhero sci-fi novel. I was hooked right from the beginning and it was very easy to speed right through it. I'm really glad I took a chance on this because I've been pretty impressed by his two previous novels and I really appreciated his style when it comes to the superhero genre. His world-building skills are as always top-notch and I also found myself quite invested in his characters, especially Zoe and Jamie. I particularly enjoyed getting to watch them figure their lives and their futures out. Whether they're going to be the hero or the villain is entirely up to them. The action and the story overall are quite cinematic and I would enjoy seeing it adapted to the screen. Overall, I highly recommend it especially if you're a fan of superheroes and Chen's brand. I can't wait to see what Chen's going to come up with next.

[Zedsdead · Rating 1 out of 5]

The plot sounds like fun but this is too badly written for me to finish.

Dangling participles galore--there's only so many times I'm willing to rewrite a sentence in my head so it's not the cat's claws that are hiding from a sudden noise. Where the hell was the editor??

[Kate♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5stars

This was fun, dif than I was expecting (in a good way!) But also I didn't connect or care about the story very much and can tell this will be one I forget I even read in like a month.

[Kathy Shin · Rating 3 out of 5]

He was the Mind Robber. She was the Throwing Star. Can I make it any more obvious?

He was a supervillain with memory-reading-slash-erasing powers who robbed banks to build up his Caribbean retirement fund. She was a vigilante with super-hearing-running-punching-heat-sensing powers who beat up common criminals on a part-time basis. What more can I say?

He had a cat (named Normal). She had drinking problems. And together they will be heroes. Just for one day. Or several

Alright. Notwithstanding the mashup of Avril Lavigne and David Bowie that's been looping in my head since I first read the blurb, and despite your typical premise of "two enemies find common ground and end up working together," the villain and the superhero of We Could Be Heroes do NOT end up in a romantic entanglement—this is a friendship first type of tale—which I thought was delightfully refreshing. And Chen offers a lot more to refresh your dusty, jaded brain crevices. Zoe is an Asian-American superhero-slash-food-delivery-person with amnesia, and Jamie is a pragmatic pansexual British-American bank robber with amnesia. A match made in heaven.

No, truly - they're a great duo. Jamie is a quiet planner, thriving on organization and examining problems from multiple angles, whereas Zoe is an unabashed pantser, throwing caution to the wind and bashing through front doors. Complete opposites and it's a hell of lot of fun seeing them at work. Chen also does his absolute best to add little details that creep under your heart and make you root for the characters. Like how Jamie practices his cliche one-liners and loves books and would spoil his cat to hell and back. Like how Zoe lives for campy slasher flicks.

The fun also comes with dark moments. Zoe is impulsive and deals with addiction and feelings of unfulfillment. Jaime is adamant about avoiding his past. Neither are very good with social interactions; they both use their powers and monikers as a shield against the world, a way to face people with more confident versions of themselves. It's easy to rehearse lines and put on a costume. Harder to go home at the end of the day where there's no one to hide behind except yourself. Chen balances the tonal shifts neatly.

I did find it disappointing, though, that Jamie's backstory was brushed aside and never really touched on again until the end. I guess that's to illustrate the difference between the protagonists - how Zoe digs and digs for answers until she's satisfied, while Jamie would rather just move forward with a new start - but it still feels like a major string left untied. This is a story about setting aside your past in the past and living as the person you are in the present, and a deeper insight into both Jamie and Zoe's previous lives would have put more weight behind the message.

Other than that, the plot is definitely the weakest point. It's your classic fare of "Scientists conduct experiments on humans. Scientists get their asses handed to them by said experiments" - skeletal at best, unanswered questions dotting the narrative like swiss cheese holes at worst. But heavy plotting never seems to be Chen's focal point, and really, with characters like these, it doesn't have to be. For me, charming characters and banter can carry most bland plots, and Jamie and Zoe are the definition of charm. So it was easier to turn the skeptic whispers down low and not get hung up on the fact that some of these organizations - the police especially - acted like people out of a PG-13 cartoon.

Speaking of cartoons, that's what the story felt like - a good Pixar film. Simple, self-aware, a little cheesy (but the kind that keeps you grinning), and all in all endearing. It doesn't seek to completely reinvent the superhero genre or pull you through a deep breakdown of its tropes, but it does doodle in a little party hat and a fuzzy lap cat for the superhero on your comic book cover. Just a bit of fun. Just a bit of heart-tugging humanity. And a reminder that behind every masked hero (or villain-turned-hero) with great power is someone with their own share of flaws and insecurities.

~~
Review copy provided by the publisher. All opinions are my own

[Alyson Stone · Rating 1 out of 5]

Book: We Could Be Heroes
Author: Mike Chen
Rating: 1 Out of 5 Stars

I would like to thank the publisher, Mira Books, for sending me an ARC.

I’m just going to be honest. I did not like this one. It’s not that it’s a bad book by any means, but I just could not get into. I really think that I am not the intended audience for this one. I gave it a go and it just didn’t work out for me.

I felt like the big reason why I didn’t like this one was because of the way that everything was carried out. We have two twenty something year olds who both have a lot going on. Plus, they have superhero powers. However, we really aren’t given a chance to kind of bond with them and get to know them. It felt like the author was trying to withhold this information to make him seem all knowing. I have read books where this is done and done well. However, here it felt kind of slopy and really took away from the plot. I know it was supposed to be big reveal at the end, but it just made for a mess. We needed to have just a little bit more background information in order for the whole plot to work. We were just missing that information that would have made the whole thing work.

The fact that information was withheld and not done very well had a big effect on the plot for me. There were times in this book that I had no idea as to what was going on. I know, I know, it was all done for the sake of the big reveal. However, there was some information that was missing that we kind of needed to know in order to have a better understanding of the story. You can withhold information and still make the plot work. You have to give your readers clues and hints to make them guess as to what is happening. I wasn’t able to do that here. As a result, I lost interest in what was going on.

Mike Chen isn’t a bad writer. However, the way he carried this one out made me not want to pick up anyone of his books. The writing could have been good, but it was very clear in this one that he was trying way too hard to hide information that we kind of needed to understand what was going on. Maybe this makes me a poor reader, but I don’t think so. We need background information. We need something to give us a chance to kind of piece together what is going on. We need a reason to see if our theories are right and, sadly, that did not happen here.

So, anyway, I think I have said just about all I can say about this one. It comes out on January 26, 2021.

[Christy · Rating 5 out of 5]

3 days into the new year and I already have a book for my best of list. I want to say We Could Be Heroes took me completely by surprise but I have read Mike’s words before and knew I was in for a treat.

Looking for a speculative novel that is character driven and full of heart? Enter We Could Be Heroes, with action that keeps you fully immersed and characters you’re cheering for the whole way through.

In a world that could easily be ours, two unsuspecting characters have developed superpowers….with no memory before that moment. Humans are fundamentally always in search of who they are so two adults waking up with extraordinary powers that no one else appears to have and no recollection of how they got there is cause for immediate crisis.

…or is it? The book opens in action scene that is at first jarring - what a terrifying ability! Robbing a bank by threatening to erase a person’s loved one from their memory? I was immediately terrified of Jamie and his mind-bending ability. Turns out Jamie is a cinnamon roll and he just wants to spoil his cat and retire to a beach. Do I think he would do it? No.

Of course, Zoe, the vigilante with your more typical abilities (speed, strength, etc) is planning her big moment, capturing the memory (and bank) robber. She’s…a mess with a heart of gold. Impulsive. Reckless. Determined.

This is a typical romance set up but I appreciate that Mike played off their shared connection to find out their pasts and the friendship that develops between these two unlikely heroes. Ultimately this is a story about who we are and who we want to be. How we shape our futures and honor our pasts. It also has an interesting world that is uncovered in the back half of the book, which I flew through.

Someone adapt this because it has all the makings of an amazing movie!

[Sonja · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I enjoyed reading about Zoe and Jamie, the antiheroes, the parts with the villain(s) of the story was a bit of a snooze fest. The plot was okay, the writing okay, but everything needed to be punched up in order to make this whole thing work as a whole. I would have loved more on Zoe and Jamie, I think we only scratched the surface on this, they felt one dimensional. Less "action" fighting scenes and a more sympathetic look at Sasha's back story and more on the detective etc. Basically, I just wanted more to everything without adding to the page count.