Secondhand Origin Stories is about the children of famous superheroes who want to help people as well – and as the title says, this is truly an origin story, where the “real” superhero fights only really happen towards the end. It is a very character-focused novel about both blood and adopted/found family, about growing up in the shadow of your famous parents, and even about the unrightful imprisonment of many Black people.

This book was emotional, funny, with an all-queer main cast, and I think it handled issues and questions about family nicely. Once I really got into the plot, I ended up loving it. There is also one character that I would love to squee about but I can’t really do it without spoilers, so let me just say this: I LOVE MARTIN SO MUCH.

The four main characters are:
- cis asexual Deaf guy
- nonbinary bisexual person, xe/xyr pronouns
- two sapphic girls, one a dark-skinned Black girl (labels unclear)

Important notes on representation:
- I found the treatment of the nonbinary character in the first half of the book hurtful to read as a nonbinary reader, even though the author themself is nonbinary. This nearly made me put down the book. Major tw for (unintentional) misgendering.
- As an asexual person, I found the asexual representation... okay? It's only really mentioned in one scene, and while I liked that one scene, I would have appreciated more.
- There are some aspects of the Deaf representation that felt off to me (talk of "fixing" and "going back to normal" after a character loses his hearing), but I am not Deaf so I'm not an authority on this.

Read the full review with more details on my blog, A Thousand Worlds.