Dreadnought: Nemesis - Book One

This book was GREAT! I read it AND listened to the audiobook. At its most basic it's the usual troubled teen gets superpowers thrust upon them that are an answer to their prayers but also end up open doors to a whole new set of unforeseen issues. Except it doesn't feel like a rehash at all, it's all done in a very original way, with a very original MC, and while I personally can not relate to the MC's struggles as a trans woman, the author did an amazing job of bringing Danny to life that it was as if I got a glimpse into her world. Danielle/Dreadnought, the MC, was a very believable 15 year old kid who made very 15 year old kid decisions, creating some of her own problems, making many of her problems worse, and was also pretty naive about some things, but as with any good character, you could see as she learned and grew which was really cool. I felt so bad for how traumatized Danny was, how she lived in constant fear of her dad, even before her transitioning, and the little things she did to "make herself small" and "not be noticed" because it was "just safer" made me want to hug her so badly. I also thought the source of her powers was very cool and pretty original, although I don't read many comics so maybe I'm wrong?🤷‍♂️ The way Danny used them was also pretty neat and original. If I say too much more I might begin spoiling so I'm just going to end with how great this book was, how well written it was, both the human side of this young girls transition as well as the action and hero side, and if EITHER of those concepts interests you, you're really missing out if you don't give this story a try!

I am not the target audience for this book or the series. It was written by a woman and meant to speak to the soul of other women like her. I am a sarcastic, grumpy, hetero man in his forties. Honestly the only reason I picked it up was because I was looking for a new series and it had a positive review on Dominic Noble YouTube channel. However, I have to say I rather enjoyed reading this book. Ms Daniels writing style is descriptive and flows naturally. Making it easy to imagine the scenes that she tells in her story. The characters are interesting and and engaging. And oddly enough the parts that had me most on the edge of my seat were not the fight scenes, or the rescue scenes, but the personal and family drama. Danielle is such an engaging main character and a hero to the Bone. It's a little embarrassing to admit this, but I got so emotionally invested in the story that halfway through the book I wanted to reach into that world and punch her dad in the face. The plot is is a bog standard superhero origin story, the kind any comic reader will recognize instantly. However, is told in such an interesting fashion that I finished the book in one sitting. Like Jim Butcher's Dresden Files; it's not high art, it's not high concept, it's just really damn good. I just bought the next book and can't wait to see what happens.

Dreadnought is the story of Danielle Trozer, a girl who was unfortunately born Daniel. When the most powerful hero in the world - the titular Dreadnought - dies in front of her, his powers pass to her, transforming her body into her ideal self-image. For previous bearers of this power, the transformation was minor. They grew a bit taller, had a nicer jawline. But for Danielle, her entire body changed from a male to a female one, fulfilling the ultimate wish of many transgendered people: an instant, permanent, and complete transition. The book follows Danielle's life as she grapples with both her newfound superpowers and desire to avenge the previous Dreadnought, and her personal life as she deals with people both supportive of her transition and not. I dont normally find myself a fan of power fantasy stories. This book certainly is: Danielle goes from a kid in an abusive home who spent her formative years having her true self repressed and running from bullies to becoming the most powerful person in the world in an instant, but the nature of the story is one that makes it more than fitting. So often in media are transgendered characters relegated to being side characters at best and far more commonly the butt of a joke. Danielle is neither of those. She feels like a very real person whose new powers may keep her safe from most physical harm, but still carries wounds from years of mental trauma. This book, while overall being very positive with an incredibly strong trans protagonist, is filled with its fair share of transphobic characters. For those who have experienced or are otherwise bothered by transphobia, this will likely be a very difficult book to read. Multiple characters refuse to acknowledge Danielle's identity in various ways, and April Daniels pulled no punches in writing their characters. They say and do truly awful things to Danielle, and I found her dealings with these people more painful and difficult to get through than any physical danger she went through as a superhero. Danielle's transition happening at the same time she became a superhero is a stroke of genius from a writing perspective, because the whole book does a great job of creating parallells between her trying to fit into her new life as a girl and her trying to find her place in the world of superheroes, a world all of its own, complete with a Jistice League like organization that judges her as a hero similarly to how her family and friends judge her as a woman. While Danielle has known that she is a girl for half her life, she spends a long time debating whether or not she can actually become a superhero. It is very easy to view the process of becoming a hero as a metaphor for questioning one's own gender, as she struggles over her own feelings on top of people both persuading and dissuading her to become the next Dreadnought. This book isnt without flaws, however. The pacing felt a bit all over the place. The first few chapters whizzed by before suddenly slamming on the brakes, sitting for a hot minute, and then flooring it to the finish line. The prose, while good at capturing the voice of a fifteen year old transgirl with superpowers, felt a bit weak at times, and it often felt like exposition was delivered just a little bot late. These shortcomings do little to hold Dreadnought back though. This is an incredible book to read. With an incredibly strong and real trans protagonist, excellent themes and subtext, especially for those who may be questioning their own identity, and gripping and exciting action, this book is well worth the read.

I’m a trans girl who grew up with superheroes, so I guess I’m kind of the perfect target for Danielle’s story. But damn, it hits center and does it hard. I wept like I’d never wept on a book before, I laughed and cheered and bit my nails out of anxiety for what would happen to characters that have digged their special place in my heart. Even my English makes little sense as I write this, cause I’m just overwhelmed: I’ll never forget this story. Ever.

This book not only depicts all the ups and downs, all the raw emotions of being transgender with a level of accuracy only a trans person could, but it does so with expert writing. April Daniels does an amazing job at telling this tale. I've never read a book that hit so close to home, especially in such a painfully captivating way. The superhero story is woven into the overall story perfectly to keep things flowing and keep the pages turning.

I’ve read a lot of YA fiction, some genre, a lot not, but have never come across anything quite like this. I’m pretty tempted to say that it’s one of my favourite YA novels ever, if only on the strength of the line very early on about how if you’re no good at being a boy, it’s beaten into you until you either comply or have the good grace to kill yourself. It’s a long time since I was a boy, but that line rang true like the beautiful note of a cathedral bell smitten with a gold sledgehammer. The is not a novel that screws around. We first meet 15-year-old Danny angrily putting on nail varnish in a car park behind a mall because that is the only way he can express his essential femininity without being kicked to death. There then follows some of the novel’s trademark laconic humour as a superhero punch-up takes place nearby. It’s the kind of scene that ‘Batman V Superman’ did so well (bear with me) in that it looks at how terrifying Superman potentially is. It’s all a case of new perspective - something this novel has in abundance. Danny’s rather weary response to the metas slugging it out suggests that these beings are a norm in the world of the novel, which does well by not dwelling too much on them before one crashes to the earth beside Danny. Dreadnaught is dying, and Danny notices how old and worn the superhero is; that he was exhausted even before taking a shot to the chest from an uncanny weapon that has drilled a fatal hole through him. We learn that Dreadnaught is actually a role passed from person-to-person and that in the absence of anyone else in the vicinity, the hero passes the mantle on to the boy. Danny immediately grasps the essential structure of the universe, which the novel presents as a kind of lattice behind all things that can be manipulated be someone with the right level of power. Along with a rigorous approach to real-world physics, these metaphysics are another of the novel’s strengths. They place the story firmly in the SF tradition, something often woefully lacking in YA fiction, without the sort of dry clever dickery that puts so many people off. Danny’s instinctive first act is to reconfigure his own body so that he becomes the girl of his dreams, in this case a lingerie-model beauty with smaller hands and feet, considerable but not unlimited strength and the ability to fly. Danny is now Danielle, which would be lovely but for two pressing issues: what will the kids at school think and worst of all, what will Dad say? Any story is only as good as its antagonists, and this novel has three great ones. The reason they are all so good is that none of them are cartoony - indeed, the depth of characterisation is why this book is a prose novel rather than, say, a graphic one. Each has a very good, wholly relatable reason for doing what they do even though their actions are catastrophic as far as Danielle is concerned. First, there is the mysterious Utopia, a fembot who is on some weird mission of her own and whose reaction to Danielle when they meet is not what our heroine expected. Then there is Graywytch, who uses magic instead of science and is the kind of extreme feminist I’m surprised we haven’t seen more of in the era of Trump. It is Graywytch who asks the question about menstruation, a factor Danielle has conveniently forgotten to engineer into her new self. Worst of all though is Danielle’s father, a man who perhaps correctly sees himself as a failure and is determined at all costs to prevent his child making the same mistakes. There is no doubt that Dad is motivated by love; it is just that his furiously resentful personality twists it into something awful and bullying. Faced with his happily altered child, the man’s first response is to try and find ‘a cure’. Sigh, and yet, you know, the current US administration… It’s not even ironic when Danielle has to rescue her own father from some frightful situation of his own making as he pursues this loathsome course, just very sad. That Danielle can’t even reveal her own involvement in the rescue illustrates without overdoing the point that superpowers are no use at all if you do not have the strength inside yourself to face down your most intimate challenges. If all this sounds a bit heavy, don’t worry, it’s not. Many novels, YA and other, make do with a few decent twists and generally we’re all happy with that. This one, though, has all of the fine structure of a decent thriller, with plot evolutions rooted in character that you won’t see coming. It’s helped by the ambiguity around everything that happens. Much of the current craze for superhero fiction, especially in movies, is for some extreme but simple power to sort out the labyrinthine problems we find ourselves up against. ‘Dreadnaught’ has the courage to avoid all that. For example, the Legion - an organisation of superheroes with their own tower and a fondness for sorting out the high end problems of the world rather than, you know, local issues around poverty - is a constant source of confusion for Danielle. These adults would quite happily have Danielle top herself so that the mantle can be passed on to someone more deserving. Yeah, you read that right. However, they are also supportive, especially the rather lovely chain-smoking genius Doc Impossible, a kind of alternative mother figure to Danielle who sorts Danielle’s superhero costume out. Revealingly, Danielle isn’t allowed to have colours other than grey to disguise her and isn’t allowed to carry out investigations, plus assorted other adult rule-based nonsense that none of them seem to take any notice of. Worse still is the reaction of Danielle’s best friend, which of all the harshness in the book is for me the most upsetting. This is a novel that carries off an almost impossible balancing act, from the personal YA drama of sexual and personal identity to human and meta-human politics. It succeeds with aplomb and I was sorry when I came to the end of it. Recommended, and then some.

Well, I really liked this! I was a bit sceptical because I've heard many people complain about how whiny Danny, the main character, was and similar things, but to me it wasn't like that at all. She did complain a lot, sure, but it was absolutely justified and I didn't find it repetitive or annoying - in fact, I thought that's what made her a realistic and compelling character. She perfectly represented the struggles of being a trans teenager and being a new superhero, and she was pretty relatable at times. To me, she came off as a very strong character, and was definitely the best part of the book. Plus, I loved her relationship with Calamity and I can't wait to read more about their adventures! I only have two complaints: 1. The action scenes sometimes used the same expressions over and over again, which could be a bit repetitive. 2. The ending felt a bit rushed, but a lot of things are still unresolved, so I'm guessing this is not the end. tw: transphobia (a lot, so beware), homophobia, transphobic and homophobic slurs, mention of suicidal thoughts

I asked google for trans stories, every list always mention Dreadnaught. Regardless of your reasons this is a good book. It alternates between Danielle fighting to be herself and saving lives, transphobia is a leading conflict in her normal life while a classic vigilante story delivers plenty of great action. Not to mention they made "strong and can fly" into a really interesting power set due to spoilers. Look, if your trans then brace yourself for it to hit close to home, but it'll feel all the more satisfying an ending. If you're not trans. Uh, please give this a shot? It always helps us when other people know what we go through. And if the authors reading this, thank you. You've given me the courage to fully come out.