Avi Hirsch has always known his daughter was different. But when others with incredible, otherworldly gifts reveal themselves to the world, Avi realizes that her oddness is something more-that she is something more. With this, he has a terrifying revelation: Emmeline is now entering a society where her unique abilities unfairly mark her as a potential threat. And even though he is her father, Avi cannot keep her safe forever.
Emmeline soon meets others just like her: Carrie Norris, a teenage girl who can turn invisible . . . but just wants to be seen. Fahima Deeb, a woman with an uncanny knack for machinery . . . but it's her Muslim faith that makes the U.S. government suspicious of her.
They are the nobody people-ordinary individuals with extraordinary gifts who want one only thing: to live as equals in an America that is gripped by fear and hatred. But the government is passing discriminatory laws. Violent mobs are taking to the streets. And one of their own-an angry young man seething with self-loathing-has used his power in an act of mass violence that has put a new target on the community. The nobody people must now stand together and fight for their future, or risk falling apart. The first book of a timely two-part series.
The Nobody People is a powerful novel of love and hope in the face of bigotry that uses a world touched by the fantastic to explore our current reality. It is a story of family and community. It is a story of continuing to fight for one another, no matter the odds. It is the story of us.
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In the years before, when hateful men warned of the coming, crushing aluminium cans in their hands while their friends threw darts, or in rowboats tying flies, they spoke only of darkness. PROLOGUE, INCIDENT AT POWDER BASIN
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(@TitanBooks, 8 September 2020, 496 pages, ebook, copy from the publisher via # NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed)
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I'd never heard of the author before but the publisher is among my favourites and the blurb intrigued me so I decided to give it a go. The book reminds me a lot of the X-Men. I have also read other books with a similar premise. So plot-wise, there's nothing really new here. However, The Nobody People is really well written and I felt very connected to the characters. I'm an outsider myself so love reading books where characters considered odd or a bit different are a focus point for the story. The characters struggle with issues that are very relevant to today's society but it never feels like the author is preaching or being judgemental. The book tackles bigger issues about the world the character live in and not just the fact they have super-powers which is often the least important thing about the characters. Some issues include racism, bigotry, equality and identity. It felt like I was reading a book that could be true. If people with these gifts did appear in the world today, the author paints a very real and a bleak but portrait of how society would treat them.
