Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain

I just now started reading Richard Roberts' Please Don't Tell My Parents... series, and I am kicking myself for having waited so long. The first book's been on my Kindle for years, and I'd low key ignored it because I had some notion it leaned more toward kids. And, yep, it's a YA read, except, it turns out, grown-ups can latch onto it, also. Me, I was feverishly swiping my Kindle pages. Bad Penny is a riot.Maybe some plot spoilers.Never mind that she's a 13-year-old middle-grader, Penelope Akk can hang at the same table with the likes of Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Forge, Doctor Dire, and Amelia Lockheart. One thing to differentiate Penny from those other mad inventors is that she's a legacy hero, offspring of widely-respected superhero parents, her super-brainy dad and her even more daunting, equally genius mom, The Audit. The Audit is so terrorizing a crimefighter that baddies usually just give up once they learn she's after them.The book takes place in the Californian town of Los Feliz. As the story begins, Penny is impatiently waiting for her super-power to manifest so she could embark on her cape & cowl career. But when she does get her power, she's cautioned that it takes usually up to four years for her power to fully gestate and, ergo, that long before she could be a full-fledged superhero.Except Penny proves the exception to the rule. And another rule of thumb her power spits on is that, as the armored hero, Mech, confides, "The first thing we invent is often our greatest creation." So, it looks as if Penny's power projects her as a practitioner of mad super-science. And, sure, the confounding recycling Machine is a flabbergasting first-time creation of Penny's, or as someone wrily says to her, "Your first doomsday machine is a malevolent, inscrutable wristwatch." But as we find out, there are at least two other inventions she concocts in short order that rival the Machine in ingenuity and flair and enigma.My favorite mad tech she designs? I like so many of them, but I may have gotten the most giddy over the zombie rag dolls.Penelope attends Northeast West Hollywood Middle School, academia that we increasingly suspect harbors a number of budding supers as its students. Penelope counts two of her classmates as her best friends, and when she gains her power, she ain't about to leave them behind. There's Penelope Akk, raring to launch her crimefighting career. But a mishap at the science fair and an ill-advised skirmish with a hero's sidekick later, and there's Penelope and her two minions (a.k.a. best friends) promptly labeled as the latest super-villains.What a dang good read this is. I stayed up late and woke up early to finish it, and the almost 400 pages went by just like that (*snaps finger*). In a way, this reminded me of those movies, Sky High or Zoom, only tons better. The author has created a world that feels lived. There's a sense of a continuity and history that have already been established, that this world still goes on even when the author isn't writing about it.I can't get enough of The Inscrutable Machine, which is what Penelope's team would be called eventually. I appreciate that while this is a YA read and has its share of ridiculous superhero tropes, the author plays it straight. He works in a serious treatment of the characters and what befalls them. I appreciate that the super-powered community - be they heroes or villains - don't take The Inscrutable Machine lightly. These kids may only be 13-year-olds, but they're dangerous 13-year-old super-villains.I enjoyed their teamwork. It's refreshing that Penny's two friends, Claire and Ray, listen to her during combat - I'm so used to other super teams infighting and imploding - and that they're sensible enough to recognize when it's okay to strut around and indulge in kayfabe and when to beat feet. No wonder the adults take them seriously. There's a romantic triangle in the works, with Penny smitten with her friend with the British accent. Gratifyingly, it doesn't get in the way of the three kids' friendship nor does Penny allow her feelings to distract her when there's work to be done. Instead, it just sits there in the background, something for Penny to occasionally dust off and contemplate.If I have to grouse, it's that I don't find it believable that Penny can keep her parents in the dark about her alter ego. These are experienced, genius superheroes living under the same roof as her. And Penelope's super-villain name is "Bad Penny," for cripes' sake!I love everything else about this book. I grin at Penelope's dilemma. She aches so badly to be a do-gooder. But she's so good at villainy. I enjoyed the Inscrutable Machine's forays into the super-community. It's how we get a peek at the underpinnings of such a strange society and the unspoken agreements that govern behavior between heroes and villains.I got a chuckle over what Penny had to say about the super-soldier serum: "It's funny, because, you know, supervillains try to make this stuff all the time, but they keep trying to make soldiers." Penny's approach to the super-soldier serum? She opts for giving the recipient "better muscle tone and stuff." She dubs it the super cheerleader serum. Sounds silly, but it's how she was able to crew her team.Is it weird that I found myself liking the baddies more so than the good guys? From Claire's mom, the once charming reformed villainess known as the Minx, to the daft Lucyfar, who may or may not be a demon from hell, to that has-been strongman, Bull. They seem way nicer than most of the heroes the Inscrutable Machine runs into.I'm stoked that there are heaps of sequels to read about Penny and her "group of middle-school supervillains who've been crushing every adult in their way." I'm not so stoked that these sequels don't seem available on Kindle, forcing me to buy the paperback versions. It's just that, it's been so long since I had a papercut.

Just because something is a children's book doesn't mean it isn't good, even really good. Such is the case with PDTMPiaSV. Holy cow, that's long even when abbreviated. Anyway, with my reviews I attempt to delve into what I liked and didn't like and why so that you may make your own decisions about if you want to read it or not. Comments are always welcomed.What drew me to this book is that I really really enjoy the idea of a bad guy main character point of view, which the title really insists you're going to be reading about. To be honest this isn't new or anything, the Artemis Fowl books are very much the same in that the morals of the main are a little questionable, but not too questionable because it's meant for kids. Personally I think that is where the Artemis Fowl comparison ends though because while that one tended to be very comfortable in the dues ex machina world of children's books, this one is going to be a lot more shockingly real feeling. In fact the only reason this is truly a children's book at all is because Richard Roberts, who by the way is a great guy and despite a lot of fame will respond to messages, doesn't like to write unhappy endings.So yes, if you're reading Richard Roberts you can bet that probably everything will work out one way or another, but does that mean everything is perfect? Not... really. The fact is that these books manage to walk this crazy line of children's book and young adult that just blows me away. The author may not like to kill people, but the threats will be real. There may not be a moment of emotional distress (for you the reader) but the characters will experience the gambit. Speaking of the characters, there is a lot of depth to them, even extremely side characters whom only show up a little bit. Issues? Yes this book covers that sort of stuff too, without including a direct LGBT theme, Roberts expresses a very love is love attitude with a single sentence.Now besides being a children's book, this story is very much firmly in the genre of super hero stories. These have been getting really popular of late and this is maybe the third I've reviewed so far, each one taking a slightly different approach to it. In this book super powers are really not that uncommon and you really get the impression anyone can acquire them with enough motivation. . Actually I take that back, the book straight up shows you that anyone can. This is refreshing because when you read a book about special people, part of the appeal is usually the sense of being better than someone else because say you won the super hero lottery. While some might like the chosen one approach to being special, I for one do not. I like my characters to earn it and in absence of that, at least be able to earn it. Though there really isn't any non-powered characters in this story, that's a fact that doesn't seem to matter much because anyone could be if they really sought it out and that's pretty cool.What compels the story I think the most is the mix of internal and external story telling. There is the action of a fight and the emotional distress of being in that kind of scary situation. There is the menace of a villain and the emotional betrayal of being led into a trap. The book manages to cover these things in near equal measure which a recipe for widespread appeal in any story. You can really get a sense for how various people are handling things as the story goes and often times these are complex emotions, especially for a children's book.There is a little bit of romance, which is never a high point for me. I tend to feel with romance you need a reason, not just toss it in wily nily because it gives the reader some sort of high. Generally speaking the best romance in stories is the kind that has some sort of relation to the armature or the moral. I can't honestly say that this is the case in this book, in part because I couldn't even tell you what the moral, if there is one, is. This doesn't mean it is a bad book per say, and the romance is so played down it hardly detracts, but it is something I noticed later on. Another thing you might want to know going into it is that there is going to be a lot of loose ends seeing as the book is one part of a serious. This doesn't bother me because I personally see life as a never ending story and books that try to tie everything neatly bugs me a great deal more.In the end I would recommend this book to most anyone, however I can see why some of the above points might turn off some readers. I'll be thrilled to get around to book two (when my reading list allows) and toss in a review then. In the meantime I'm happy to respond to any comments.

Penny, a teenage nerd in middle school, is also the daughter of a pair of retired superheroes. She can't wait to grow up and get her powers so that she can follow in their footsteps as the next generation of superhero. Hoping to surprise her parents, she keeps quiet when her powers turn up years earlier than expected. On her first mission, however, she runs into a superhero sidekick who, it turns out, is also the mean girl at her school. Admittedly, the sidekick had it coming, but when Penny and her friends defeat her, they get labelled as villains instead of heroes. Try as they might, they can't convince the world that it was all a mistake, mostly because they're just so very good at being villains. And if they're going to be villains anyway, they may as well be the best supervillains they can be.Really hope that there is a sequel.

Interesting book.A mite misleading since the description suggests they're heroes who are accused of being villains because of an unfortunate incident with the sidekick of another hero.Looking forward to the sequel as it might explain better the relationship between the heroes and villains because from what I've read so far they should have been caught before the end of the first book and got away only because the adult heroes were busy attending a conference instead of their so-called vocation.Give this series a look, its worth the price!

This book went beyond all my expectations. I brought it because of the title and tag line, but the storyline has meant that I read the whole thing cover to cover twice with out pause because of how captivating it is. I've since reread it again, and I plan to read it for a fourth time in the next week in time for the sequel coming out. It captures all the fun of a superhero universe, but with out any of that annoying preachiness you get in some comics. Or stupid storylines because you don't want to upset the states quo. Read this book.

Despite the advertising blurb of "What if Harry Potter was Steampunk?" It is not Steampunk.What it is, is a very good and enjoyable book with humour, good characters, 'believable' behaviour and enough of a take on Superhero/Supervillany Comic book stories to make it work.Fans of comic books will appreciate it, people who like innovative story lines will like it, people who like SF will like it.Once I started on it I couldn't stop reading it and YES this seriously deserves a sequel or two.

This is an excellent book. It's aimed at a young adult audience, and I think it works on that level (but I'm no longer a young adult).It crosses the barrier, however. The writing is good, the characters are believable, they don't do the usual stupid stuff you'd expect kids with powers might do (though they get up to their share of nonsense).