Ashleigh Paige

See more of my reviews on Birth of a New Witch! My copy was an eARC I received from my co-blogger, who solicited it from the author. Our plan was a sort of joint review.2.5 stars.My choice is not to post a full review for reasons the party in the comments will make pretty clear. Why put in the effort when it's not worth it? This is the gist of what I thought of the book:Positives*One has such a great base and I love that it comments on how teenage boys might use their powers to further hurt girls and/or women:In one short year there, I’d seen a few new girls come to Superior High, girls who got shipped in from across the country for the “community” and hadn’t been around those asshole boys for their whole lives, so they didn’t know any better. I heard the jeers of, “Hey, sweetie, you know I’ve got X-ray vision, right? Might as well take it all off right now.” I saw superhuman strength used in threats against girls, veiled or not-so-veil.*I love Merrin's voice and how the book is written. There weren't any moments where I tripped over some awkward prose and other than some inconsistent grammar toward the beginning, it was smooth sailing all the way through.*All the superhero nods! From Heroes to X-Men to the Hulk and beyond, there are all sorts of little things fans will catch while they're reading. It was fun seeing them and figuring out where they're from.*Multiple times, I came across lines that made me fistpump and go HELL YES. Like this one from when she's flying with Elias, which may be one of my favorites ever:And no matter how good it felt to kiss Elias, to be so close to him that I felt his heart beating in my chest and the vibration of his speech against my skin, I don’t want to let him carry me until I know I can carry myself.Negatives*This reads like a manuscript one good round of edits away from being queried, not a novel a month away from being published. The worldbuilding is dumped on us all at once toward the start with everything from internal narrative to a lecture given by a holographic teacher to explain why some people have superpowers in the 2300s/2400s. Uranium Wars and some mistakes.*The romance in this novel is important to pretty much everything, but it's a weakly developed insta-love deal that wants desperately to be genuine love. It all happens too fast with so little to work with and even after some deal-breaking stuff happens between them, they're still supposed to love each other enough to do what they do. Call me cynical, but it doesn't work for me.*The science confuses me. So the powers Supers and Ones have are part of their genetics, but they can give away their powers or adopt powers from others? Maybe this makes sense on a deeper scientific level, but not every reader should be expected to know enough hard science to understand this. There must be a way to make it a little more accessible!*Merrin is pretty petty when it comes to other girls. She considers Leni a rival for being friends with Elias and only reconsiders friendship when she learns Leni likes someone else. It's a little jarring compared with some of the more woman-friendly stuff Merrin thinks/says. This also happens before Merrin and Elias are anything more than friends. In general, Merrin attaches to Elias so quickly that it's within the borders of creepy.Not staying around for the sequel, Two.