Strictly No Heroics

by B. L. Radley

Overview

In Strictly No Heroics, a normal teen girl must navigate crushing on her best friend, starting a new summer job, and not being squashed during the next supervillain showdown in B.L. Radley's young adult debut filled with humor and heart.

A Normie’s guide to staying alive in Sunnylake City:

1. Keep your head down.
2. Don’t make enemies.
3. Strictly no heroics.

The world is run by those with the Super gene, and Riley Jones doesn’t have it. She’s just a Normie, ducking her way around the hero vs. villain battles that constantly demolish Sunnylake City, working at a crappy diner to save up money for therapy, and trying to figure out how to tell her family that she’s queer. But when Riley retaliates against a handsy superhero at work, she finds herself in desperate need of employment, and the only place that will hire her is HENCH.

Yes, HENCH, as in henchmen: masked cronies who take villains' coffee orders, vacuum their secret lairs, and posture in the background while they fight. Riley's plan is to mind her own business and get paid...but that quickly devolves when she witnesses a horrible murder on the job. Caught in the thick of a gentrification plot, a unionization effort, and a developing crush on her prickly fellow henchwoman, Riley must face the possibility that even a powerless Normie can take a stand against injustice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250818478
Publisher:	Feiwel & Friends
Publication date:	03/28/2023
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	172,865
Product dimensions:	5.85(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.15(d)
Lexile:	HL690L (what's this?)
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

B. L. Radley wanted to be an astronaut or a penguin when they grew up. Neither worked out. Thankfully, fiction lets them live vicariously as both. Raised in rural England alongside several tame chickens and one feral brother, Radley still lives in the countryside, along with nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine story ideas, enough books to count as a fire hazard, and the occasional Oxford Comma. Strictly No Heroics is their debut novel.

Editorial Reviews

★ 01/16/2023

A normal human teenager living in a world where superheroes and villains are standard grapples with high school crushes and a new summer job in this insightful, multilayered debut. Seventeen-year-old Riley Jones, who’s struggling to manage her anxiety and figure out how to tell her family she’s queer, lives by three simple rules: “Keep your head down. Don’t make enemies. Strictly no heroics.” But when she’s fired from her food service gig for smacking a hero after he sexually harasses her coworker, she gets a job at Hench, a company that supplies supervillains with all-purpose, anonymous hench-people. There, she learns that villainy isn’t always about world domination: her coworkers are, like her, just normies trying to make ends meet. Riley’s summer grows ever more complicated as the henchmen unionize, land developers look to gentrify her neighborhood, and she develops feelings for her new coworker Sherman, a gorgeous, edgy teen with plenty of attitude and secrets. Radley subverts classic comic book tropes to craft an imaginative futuristic setting grounded in realistic interpersonal challenges. In this engaging and provocative telling, Radley skillfully explores power and privilege from both human and superhuman angles. Characters are intersectionally diverse. Ages 14–up. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"In this insightful, multilayered debut... Radley subverts classic comic book tropes to craft an imaginative futuristic setting grounded in realistic interpersonal challenges." —Publishers Weekly, starred Review

"Riley’s journey in this world populated with queer and racially diverse characters is both thrilling and galvanizing." — Kirkus

"It’s not easy being a Normie in a world where superheroes and villains take up all the attention... so Riley’s hesitance to just embrace her own badass self is understandable...the book ends on a celebratory note as she finally realizes that she can have love, a great job, a close and honest connection with her family, and a meaningful place in the world, regardless of her status. " —BCCB

" Radley's debut smartly winds critical issues into the propulsive plot. A thrill ride for socially conscious teens." —Booklist Online

From the Publisher

2022-12-14
Seventeen-year-old Riley Jones becomes a henchman.

When a Super harasses her friend Javira Neita at the vegan burger place where they work, Riley, who is a Normie, retaliates with a faceful of frozen veggie burgers. Fired for assaulting a customer and in need of money for therapy for her anxiety, Riley finds Hench, the only company willing to take her on. Working as a henchman becomes her way to lash out against a society that favors those with superpowers. At first, Riley is thrilled to join the squad, but her bubble bursts when she discovers their true purpose: Instead of striking down arrogant heroes, henchmen are trained to miss all their shots, acting incompetent to stall for time and disrupt their villainous clients’ plans. The situation grows more complicated as Amelia Lopez, a scientist hunted by a villain called the Ferocious Flamer, uses her last moments to give Riley her research on mysterious Project Zero. Riley is torn between playing it safe and taking up Amelia’s torch. Radley explores how it feels to be the little guy through the allegorical lens of superpowers: Superemacist ideology has many parallels readers will recognize from the real world, and the setting doesn’t come across as a fictional dystopia due to this grounding in social issues. Riley’s journey in this world populated with queer and racially diverse characters is both thrilling and galvanizing.

A call to action as much as a piece of entertaining fiction. (Science fiction. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews