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I'm all in for this one.
Before we even meet the family, they've cracked. A mother and her two children are already moving away to a sister’s house in paradisiac suburbia. Instantly, we realize this book’s universe did not begin on page one. Readers will find themselves bursting with curiosity, and eager to get to the next page already. We don’t even see the mother, Ruth, pile her children into her blue hatchback, and leave her husband looking down (or not looking at all) at them as they take off. By they time they arrive at her sister's "peaceful" home, we’ve only been racing along the blue hatchback for the last sliver of that fateful car ride. In less than two pages, we’re informed of this pre-existing universe. A lesser writer would have taken longer.
Speaking of temporality and our collective need to hurry the hell up and enjoy ourselves, Steven Amsterdam wastes no ink. The first chapter follows Giordana, who acquires the ability to render herself invisible. The source of the power isn’t revealed. Giordana has her suspicions of the source, and where they lie create the potential for a delightful unfolding later on in the story. An economically wise decision, which successfully keeps our curiosity as readers on a steady tap.
Delightful might be the wrong term, considering the amount of contained dysfunction amidst our heroes. And I say heroes because we are treated to the perspectives of every main character—all seven—over different periods of time, separated by decades. Amsterdam seems to understand the reader’s intrinsic taste for gossip and drama with the way this book is structured. The characters that barely speak, or don’t even make an appearance in one chapter, are cracked wide open in their respective chapters. The gift of perspective he treats us to is truly a privilege.
Not only that, but Amsterdam’s talents for description and clarity are unrivaled. The revelation of each superpower is not a saccharine, operatic ascension to the super-hero’s pedestal. With humility, and simplicity he guides his characters through these sudden developments that are so believable, it’s nearly breathtaking. Take Giordana’s disappearing:
From the veranda, she could see that the street was still. A few cars sat in driveways and not even a breeze through the evenly spaced trees. Giordana went back inside to make a quick round of the house without the house knowing. She lessened herself. Looked down: no legs, no arms. Ace, She trusted her senses to know she was not just a floating head. Proprioception, the feeling of your body in space. What was it called when your body was there but not there? She took the stairs with her hands up, as if it was a balancing act.
Giordana is not placed in—brace for irony—an invisible realm reserved for beings with super ability. There isn’t a spot reserved for her on Olympus from where she can observe weaker beings. She’s hardly even made into the quintessential, and exhausted portrait of the girl who’s "not like other girls." Her human curiosity and lack of assurance in the face of new power are very much there. In this regard, Amsterdam's approach to a girl feeling empowered by her invisibility is as refreshing as it is enticing.
What won’t surprise you is the link between the characters' humanity and their super-ness. The powers reflect their desires and their flaws, which are the main ingredients to personality. And although the connections between super power and personality is a method old as time, Amsterdam doesn’t lose steam and neither will you as you read. Each hero is illustrated brilliantly; they each, within the space of a single chapter, read as more than figments of Amsterdam's remarkable imagination. This comes from a kind of story-telling that is unabashedly honest, and composed with dedication to each word.
As I stood reading a borrowed copy of this book, I decided I needed my own before I got to page five. When I eventually arrived at it's ending, I went right back to page one.
5 out of 5 stars.
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