3.5 stars (I think? gah this is a hard one to review!)

I just have so many feelings, and Nick's scatter-brained-ness is wearing off onto me.

All in all, this was a fun read. It was hilarious. And cheesy. I read lots of reviews before going into this, and most of them said not to expect anything too deep or substantial and that was true. I recommend this if you want to escape the world for a while and have fun with disaster queer high schoolers and superhero cliches that are embraced for what they are.

I don't know whether this book wins or loses brownie points for the narrator. It was so clear what was going on while Nick was completely clueless--so much so that, at times, Nick was almost /too/ clueless to be believable? It was very frustrating. I was screaming through most of this, and had to put the book down multiple times because I couldn't handle it. But it was also really fun. Like. I just purely enjoyed this book. It was like watching a corny superhero movie.

This book loses a star for the police glorification in this book (which I also saw in reviews before reading, so I went in being conscious of it). There were a lot of problematic elements with how the police were portrayed, and while they're not the US police system, brushing off witness assault is not okay in any world. Nick adores his dad, but still. It did kind of cause some mixed feelings while reading--feelings that I want to sit with and feel uncomfortable with, because I know that has something to teach me.

I'm all over the place, I know. I'll sum up: highly recommend if you want to escape the world for a few hours and laugh over the disaster gay that is Nicholas Bell, not so much if you don't want to read about how great the police are and want something literary and thought-provoking.