They are friends first and the way that Seth embraces who Nick is – makes my heart melt. Nick and Seth are a great representation of a young queer relationship. Klune handles this family relationship with great care… it’s funny, loving, and challenging. Sometimes, when we love someone, we make the wrong choices and then are faced with having to deal with the consequences. Even though Nick and his father love each other without question, that doesn’t mean that they can’t make mistakes. There is a scene involving dental dams that made me laugh so hard that I cried. They have the most hilarious, loving bond. My favorite relationship in this book is between Nick and his father. There are other extraordinaries on the horizon… and some may be “good”, some may be “bad”, but Nick and Seth are on it. Nick and Seth and their cohorts are faced with more than just their arch enemy, Simon Burke who runs the evil drug company. No spoilers here! (Never spoilers for a Klune novel!) But things are definitely more complex in Book two. There’s no one more devoted as a friend/boyfriend and family member than nick and all of his relationships are challenged in book two. He’s sweet and fierce and often finds himself in tricky situations. Nick’s struggle is real! He can’t always say the things he wants to and sometimes he says things he shouldn’t say out loud. I never got to see neurodivergent queer kids in books when I was growing up, so I wanted to give a voice to people like me so they can point to a character and say, “Hey, finally someone like me.” – TJ Klune on Twitter.

My fave is Nick because he’s an obsessive boy with ADHD, like me. Nick is very much an “Own voices” character and he’s Klune’s favorite. Nick’s voice (both inside and out) is so amazing… funny, challenging, and authentic. It is an absolute joy to read a character living with ADHD. He has great friends: Gibby and Jazz who help fill out Team Pyro Storm He still has ADHD which is both challenging and hilarious. He has a boyfriend…an extraordinary boyfriend named Seth. Nick is back in the second installment of The Extraordinaries.

The overwhelming themes in this series continue in “Flash Fire”: be yourself, found family, hilarity. This is a YA series, but I would argue that anyone would enjoy this series regardless of age. My thoughts bit: Flash Fire is book two in TJ’s Extraordinaries series. Just the facts: Superheroes, diverse, queer, funny, original Which is a lot to handle for a guy who just wants to finish his self-insert bakery AU fanfic. The Official Description: Nick landed himself the superhero boyfriend of his dreams, but with new heroes arriving in Nova City it’s up to Nick and his friends to determine who is virtuous and who is villainous.

Flash fire the extraordinaries