Book #83 of 2026: The Second Chance of Darius Logan | DNF: The Extraordinary Disappointments of Leo

The post title got cut off, but it amused me to read two books in a row with the same title format:

The Second Chance of Darius Logan
The Extraordinary Disappointments of Leopold Berry

The boys' names even have the same number of syllables in them!

The Second Chance of Darius Logan by David F. Walker.

Quick synopsis: Darius's family is killed in the worst attack that ever happened to America (an attack by an alien force). Without any support, he ends up on the streets. Then ends up arrested. He's given a chance to turn his life around in a program that puts him to work as part of a team that supports superheroes.

Brief opinion: Though the ending didn't work for me, this was still the best book I've read all year. (And for those reading this on GR, this is book #83 of the year so far.) Unfortunately the story's end didn't work for me at all, but it was 100% a me-problem. It fit the story perfectly and the average reader probably loved it.

Plot: Set on an Earth where superheroes, "metahumans" (humans with extra powers or monster-like mutations), and aliens exist, Darius Logan is living on the street. His family was killed in The Attack (basically aliens and robots destroyed part of New York), and how in the world is a pre-teen boy supposed to survive on his own? For a while he's passed through a number of foster care homes (which are nearly worse than living on the street), but eventually he ages out of that and just has to try to survive by eating out of the trash and doing his best to avoid the giant, literally man-eating rats.

Due to a poor decision, he's left holding the bag (heh, again literally) when friends commit a crime, and he is arrested. This would be his third strike, and even though he's still a minor (17), he'll be going to prison for a long time.

He's picked to take part in a program that aims to turn people with a criminal past (including supervillains) around. Everything seems to be going well, except the head of security hates him for some unknown reason. Like goes out of his way to harass, beat him, and tries to make his life miserable hates him.

Darius is doing outstandingly well in the program. He's making friends, a (found) family, and he's promoted at his job. But he's never stopped having nightmares about The Attack, and then it happens again...

In the end: Darius doesn't just become a superhero, he becomes something even stronger. He bonds with an alien and that makes him stronger than even the strongest superhero. It's not even close, he's stronger than a bunch of superheroes put together and he saves the day.

Editing: Nearly perfect! Better than even other traditionally published books. There was just one error (that happened four times). For some reason there was a space before a period at the end of a sentence (three times) and once before an exclamation point. Weird that it happened four times, I wonder if it was an ebook formatting thing?

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: First off, I loved (LOVED LOVED LOVED LOVED) nearly everything about this book:

The author did what I love best: He trusted his readers. Even though this is a YA book, he didn't explain every little thing. For example, he name dropped in-story wars but never explained what they were, which made the story feel so real! If you mentioned World War II in a story, you wouldn't then go on to explain what it was about.

I love it when YA books have things that adult readers would catch but young readers would miss. For example, this rather chilling mention of how Darius would get raped if he went to prison:

A Bit like you--you'd have been chewed up and spit out. They'd turn you out and pass you around, trading you for a pack of cigarettes.

On a lighter note, the superhero names were so much fun and so believable! Stixx and Stone (husband and wife team), Billygoat Gruff (that one tickled me!), ... aw, my Kindle seems to have not saved my note with other names I liked.

All in all, the world was so realistic and believable. I loved (nearly) all of the characters! We weren't supposed to like the head of security and he's the only one I didn't like.

On that note, the author did (yet another!) thing I love in YA books: He didn't make the adult characters useless. Too many YA books make adults nothing but road bumps in the main character's plot. I liked the adult characters even better than I did Darius. (I'd LOVE a story about reformed Otto!) They all were full characters with their own history and stories going on.

On the "what I didn't like" note, one small one: The story had a URL in it, and I really wish it had worked! ...okay, now that I think of it, its contents wouldn't have been at all appropriate for a YA aged reader, and I wouldn't have wanted to watch it myself (it was videos of a kidnapped superhero being tortured to death), so I have no idea why at the time I was disappointed it didn't work.

And, as mentioned, the one big thing I didn't like: The ending. I loved it when Darius was just a normal person in a world full of superheroes. I always would rather read a "normal person" over an overly powerful one, let alone the strongest one on the planet. BUT. The ending was perfect for a superhero story. As I said, totally a me-problem.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️- Loved! Even with the ending, I loved this story so much. It seemed like there was room for another book, I hope the author continues the series! Or another book, another book would be fine too. (Alas he seems to mostly write comic books and graphic novels.)

And thus concludes one of the longest reviews I've written in quite a while.

DNF #34: The Extraordinary Disappointments of Leopold Berry by Ransom Riggs. This book didn't work for me for a number of reasons, but most of them were me-problems.

1) Maybe I've been reading too much MG, but the character felt way too old to be the main character in a YA book. 19, getting ready for college, not just driving a car but able to repair it. Google says 19 is acceptable, though 16-18 is the usual age range for YA.

2) It felt like the 19 year old was way too old to be finding a magical doorway into another world. Which is STUPID of me. Why couldn't an adult find one? An elderly person finding one would make for a great story! I have no idea why it felt so wrong in this case.

3) I didn't like the main character at all (to put it mildly). Sure he has a rough life, but I was not at all enjoying reading about him.

4) As I've said in previous reviews, I'm really not interested in reading about "real people in the real world". As of the 21% point of this book, that's all this was. Kid goes to high school, has a horrible father, had a best friend... just not what I'm interested in reading about.