HIDE OR SEEK

The son of a superhero uncovers a vast conspiracy while coming into his powers.

Plainly aiming to spin out a long series, the co-authors so cram this opener with confusing twists and hints that things are not as they seem that the whole construct collapses into an incoherent tangle. Having abruptly been bundled off with his mom, supposedly for their own protection, to a town in New Jersey so isolated that even the constellations are different, shocked 16-year-old Nick Pappas learns that his often absent dad was actually Odysseus, an Enhanced Human good guy renowned for battling EH villains, and has just been killed. However, along with running into sympathetic or hostile schoolmates who all read minds, meld bodies, or display like abilities, he discovers in a whirl of mishaps, feverish dreams, and explanatory monologues from an archvillain with a grotesquely described skin condition that the town, its residents, his dad, and even his mom are not as advertised. Meanwhile, as he mysteriously transforms into his dad’s twin and struggles to control a series of outsized rages or panic attacks that trigger massive blasts of heat and energy, he is also repeatedly subjected to forcible but incomplete memory pruning, which fails to keep him docile as intended by the end—but will effectively leave bewildered readers unsure about which if any previous events actually happened. Nick is cued as Greek American.

An indigestible mess: overstuffed and undercooked.