276°
Posted 20 hours ago

Dreadnought: Britain,Germany and the Coming of the Great War

£9.495£18.99Clearance
ZTS2023's avatar
Shared by
ZTS2023
Joined in 2023
82
63

About this deal

I see a world that is terrified of me. Terrified of someone who would reject manhood. Terrified of a girl who knows who she is and what she’s capable of. They are small, and they are weak, and they will not hurt me ever again. My name is Danielle Tozer. I am a girl. No one is strong enough to take that from me anymore.” The plot in general hits on every trope of a typical superhero novel, but executes all of them very well. While the twists are fairly easy to guess, the character dynamics and Danny’s character make the story compelling anyway. April Daniels also has a talent for compelling action scenes; out of around five, there was only one that even somewhat confused me, and it was entirely my fault for being overtired. The worldbuilding could’ve been fleshed out a bit more, but it was seriously cool. danielle would have been better as a greycape than a whitecape, honestly. she thinks about killing people and almost does kill them or leaves them to die often, but always says she’s one of the good ones and just wants to help people. and her moral superiority is wild. even when she hates herself, she still thinks and behaves as if she’s above others because “stealing is bad!!” and “punching a guy who robbed you at gunpoint is bad!!” i think letting her sit comfortably in that grey area would have made for a more interesting character. one who fought on the side of good, but didn’t always take the route the “good guys” take. (especially when those good guys have a widespread transmisia issue.) i think the one thing about danielle that is grey is her reaction to her father’s impending murder. she’s all for it, and only guilt about feeling that way is what makes her intervene, and throughout the rest of the book, she expresses regret about not having let him die. even with the abuse she’s dealt with from him, wishing death upon him is not something the typical “one of the good ones” would do. and i like that. that’s kind of the only thing i can think of that i like about this book (other than how firm danielle is about how she’s always been a girl and always been trans, people just didn’t know it, and that she always will be, even if others don’t see or accept it.) trigger warnings: transmisia, terf rhetoric, multiple transmisic slurs, anti-queer/gay slurs, internalized transmisia (trans character calling herself a transmisic slur) deadnaming, misgendering, suicidal ideation, ableist slurs/language (the r slur, jokingly suggesting someone has add, and attributing evilness to mental illnesses), physically and emotionally abusive parents, sexism and misogyny, rape threat (sort of; character wishes rape upon someone) biggest issue #1: the portrayal of what it means to be a girl in this book is kind of problematic. when danielle becomes a “real girl” (her words) she becomes smaller, for the most part. her hands, feet, and shoulders shrink down, become petite. but her waist and breasts get fuller. she quite literally becomes society’s idealized version of a woman. those physical things about her body are described as “undeniable evidence of femininity.” when her voice changes, she calls it a “girl voice.” because of her transformation, she is now suddenly more in touch with her feelings, more emotional. because of her transformation, she is suddenly hyper aware of what she eats and doesn’t want to gain weight, and starts eating salads. some of the childhood “signs” of her being trans were her asking if she could be a princess, not having a cooties phase, crossing her legs a certain way, and holding her books in front of her chest. there’s even a moment where a doctor has to break it to her that she doesn’t have a uterus, and she thinks that means she isn’t a real woman.

I could contend with flat characters if they were just boring, but a few don’t make any sense. Danny has a long-term friend, David. On the first day that he sees his friend after her transformation, he is enamored with her breasts. He is not, as one might expect, freaked out by how his friend dramatically physically changed overnight. No, because she’s hot, he spends a lot of time looking at her chest. On the second day, he asks her out with a rather horrid speech about how he is ready to settle and Danny is so hot that he can forget about the fact that she is actually a boy. When Danny rightfully rejects him, he storms off screaming slurs. The world. I liked it. It felt very "The Incredibles" sort of. Bright splashy colors, over the top "capes" and a cool take on superpowers. (Or at least, cool for those of us with about two movie franchises worth of knowledge on superheroes.)

As she tries to master her powers and explain to her friends and her parents how and why she has suddenly become the female she always knew she was inside, Danny gets pulled in many different directions by those who wish to influence her decisions. The white capes in their gleaming downtown tower offer unlimited resources and government support, but some seem reluctant to accept a transgender Dreadnought. maybe 4.5 stars. This book begins in a challenging way - 15-year old Danny is a trans girl, hiding behind a mall to put on toenail polish, the only revelation of her true self that she dares try, with her volatile father and school situation. When suddenly, a superhero/supervillain battle erupts overhead. A minute later, the dying superhero Dreadnought falls at her feet, and passes her his powers in his last moments. And along with them, the transformation of her body to her personal ideal. Which in this case means beautifully female, at least on the outside. You know when you’re reading a book and you’re trying to formulate some form of coherent thought so you can figure out what to write in your review? And you realise you’ve got ABSOLUTELY NOTHING? The plot is also pretty ho-hum which is unfortunate given the state of the characters. There are white capes who are not as good as they claim, and a super villain who is a narcissist that’s trying to stop something terrible, but going about it in the wrong (evil) way. The powers that be don’t see the trouble coming and the new whippersnapper has to take care of things on her own. It’s a pretty standard superhero plot which isn’t a bad thing. But if your characters are weak, your plot needs to carry the book. Even for teens, growing up in the age of superhero movies means that this book probably isn’t offering anything new in terms of story other than Danny.

I loved the concept of this book. A young character called Danny believes totally that she's female, however, she has been born male and despite knowing she's in the wrong body, she's from a family who would not support her choice to change. In comes Dreadnaught: superhero extraordinaire. Dreadnaught, however, is not having a good day and he's killed right in front of Danny. He passes on his powers to Danny and not only does Danny get awesome (but terrifying) powers, she's also transformed by the magic into the girl she always believed she was.Overall, I loved so much about this book. It was fast-paced, well-balanced, and Danny was a force of nature as a main character. I cannot wait to see how she develops moving forward into the next book in the series, and how the world around her shifts as well. However, as noted above, there are some darker aspects of Dreadnought. The author doesn't shy away from portraying the reality of transphobia and how difficult it is to grow up with a father who wants to make you a "real man". Many trans slurs are thrown around, and Graywytch (another of the Legion Pacifica members) deliberately misgenders Danny.

Is there a name for the situation where you keep thinking you like a certain genre, but you’re almost unfailingly critical of every book in that genre you read? That’s me and the superhero novel. I want to like superhero novels, desperately. Superheroes fascinate me. But most superhero novels I’ve read don’t quite capture whatever ineffable quality of superheroics that I’m looking for. (To be fair, I also don’t read superhero comics or watch much superhero television/movies, Supergirl aside, so maybe I’m just delusional.) So I end up reading superhero novels and then feeling let down, and it’s not entirely the fault of those books. Dreadnought is a debut novel. It’s not perfect. But it’s finally a superhero novel I can not only enjoy but adore. My major criticism is that it is too short, and that having read it so soon after its release I now have to wait far too long to read the sequel. I can’t wait to learn what Daniels has next in store for Danny, Sarah, the Doc, et al, both in terms of the threat of Nemesis and Danny’s newfound fame. Because this is not just a positive portrayal of a transgender lesbian superhero who saves the world, but it’s just the beginning. And I can only hope there are teens out there who read this and see that they, too, can be heroes. Some of the other superheroes. I loved Doc Impossible and Magma. I thought the rest were interesting as well. Except Graywytch whose powers may be cool but she can kindly fall off the next tallest building she finds. Thx.Dreadnought is wonderful YA superhero novel about a 15 year old transgender girl Danny who gets super powers after an accident and the adventures begin. Dreadnought is a ton of fun. This book follows Danny, a trans girl who gets the body she’s always wanted after famous superhero Dreadnought passes his powers on to her. David isn’t a character so much as he is a plot point. Daniels wanted to show readers the various ways in which trans people suffer, and David represents another type of betrayal. At one point, Danny questions her previous friendship with him, wondering how she didn’t see how he was so terrible. Don’t worry, Danny, it’s just terrible character development confusing people. David was never your friend because he’d have to have been a person first. Could a character reasonably ever act like David? Sure! But it would take more than 48 hours.

Asda Great Deal

Free UK shipping. 15 day free returns.
Community Updates
*So you can easily identify outgoing links on our site, we've marked them with an "*" symbol. Links on our site are monetised, but this never affects which deals get posted. Find more info in our FAQs and About Us page.
New Comment