If you enjoy X-Men this book is definitely for you!!! The book was ok for me. The ending felt abrupt and left the readers with no answers.

Thank you Netgalley for this advance copy for my honest review.

Admittedly, I won't say I'm a proper fan of sci-fi. But after being very much into such gems as Blake Crouch's "Recursion" earlier this year, and Nnedi Okorafor's speculative "Who Fears Death," I began to fancy myself as someone who could flirt with sci-fi. Bob Proehl's "The Nobody People" is speculative-type sci-fi of the "the secret superhumans who walk amongst us" variety and reading the synopsis, it seemed interesting to me. I expected a superhero story and a the story of a dad who just wanted to save his superhuman young daughter.

That is NOT what you get with this book. It's nearly 500 pages of ponderous, dragged out, slow-moving, meandering prose that in my opinion, doesn't really live up to the excitement of the premise. This book features an interesting, if frequently used concept. The early chapters are interesting enough to keep you turning the pages as you wait for the adventure to unfold. And then you find yourself turning and turning and turning waiting for it to get to the point whilst it meanders on, showing you a multitude of random events and ideas without ever weaving them into an exciting story. This is one of those paradoxical books where a lot is going on but nothing is going on at the same time. Basically, progress in the plot is unnecessarily slow and the whole effect feels unfocused and a little indulgent. This book at 500 pages felt like it was a million pages long and could have done with some more editing of content to make it tighter and better. Certain events (like the (non-explicit, I promise) orgy) were just thrown in randomly and you were left thinking what was the point of that? What does that add to the story that we didn't know.

Don't get me wrong, it's not all bad. The author's use of realistic historical events and news stories and contemporary contexts makes this feel incredibly real. And as someone new to sci-fi as a genre, I think the plausibility factor can be pretty compelling, almost an amuse-bouche for the imagination. And in this, the treatment of Resonants, mirrors the treatment of people considered "other" (racially, religiously, sexuality-wise etc) are treated in societies with a privileged majority. The overall theme of the slippery slope of separating people for otherness or trying to control otherness brings to mind how something like genocide can so easily happen in a society considered progressive, democratic and "equal." Engendering this sort of narrative is a strength of this book.

However, from a technical standpoint, one of the major issues I had is that this has too many characters that get a voice and all these characters and their thoughts and emotions are somehow separate. There is interaction but it never feels like one cohesive plot or storyline. You're not quite sure where to focus- whether on Avi, or Owen or Cassie or Fahima, and in the end, it doesn't even matter because it felt they were dropped and picked up randomly in the threads of the plot with no rhyme or reason- just whenever the author happened to remember them. Some of the "main" characters had their storylines resolved in this book but then at the resolution, you're utterly confused because it's strange that with all that tedious building, the resolution feels like the author just got tired of the characters and didn't know quite what to do with them anymore. But that's fine. I found nobody likeable in this entire story, there was no one I cared about except maybe Emmeline, who is more or less used as a device, and whom I feel it would have been better if she had featured more in this book as someone other than her parent's child or Fahima's big plan. It's hard to read 500 pages of a super tedious book when you don't like or care about anyone and feel like character's emotional development was rather stunted. But that's subjective. Others may have more patience than I do.

The final thing I'll say is that evidently, this book was NOT for me. It's not bad. It's competently well-written and well edited and one thing the author did really well especially in a novel with these themes was embrace diversity. There were LGBTQ characters, racially diverse characters, religiously diverse characters, a character living with a disability. There was also a lot of REALLY EXCELLENT discourse on "allyship" when it comes to being someone from a position of privilege looking to be an ally of people who are marginalized and discriminated against. The author had a lot of smartly-crafted editorials on this which he disseminated through his characters and even though sometimes this felt very heavy handedly done, it was a very important conversation to includ in this book. Also note that this ends on a cliffhanger and my understanding is that there is going to be a Book 2 out sometime next year.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Del Rey Books via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I quite enjoyed this book. Imagine a world where everyday people have special abilities and you just found out about them. Would you be intrigued or fearful? This isn’t a book about super heroes. It’s about everyday life, it’s fears and hopes and dreams. It’s about acceptance. Maybe even the end of the world. I’m not sure because this is book one of two. Which is good because The Nobody People just ends (not even a cliff hanger) and now I need to find out what happens next.

Disappointed

I went into this story expecting lots of action and details on people's paranormal abilities. What I got hit with was a political broadside against people who are different in our society and the imbalance between the haves and the have-nots.

Well, I'm overloaded with politics right now. Everywhere I turn, whether it be television or any social media I use, I'm inundated with everyone's view on politics or how this country is being run.

When I read I'm looking for a form of escapism. The book was written well but I just don't believe it delivered what was advertised.

I received this book from Del Rey Books through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.

Meh... There is a little too much going on in The Nobody People. It seemed like a series rather than a single book. There were a lot of characters, which isn't a bad thing, but I didn't connect with any of them which was an issue for me.

This is character driven sci-fi, that could make the reader think about a lot of things - xenophobia, different dimensions, and history repeating itself. It begins with a teen who is trapped with other workers and uses his ability to cut his way out and save everyone. Rather than being thankful, the same men he saved come back to destroy him and his family.

The reader is then introduced to Avi Hirsch, a reporter who lost a leg while covering the military actions in the middle east. He is someone who thrives on the danger and seeing different sides to the same issue. And his young daughter is a Resonant: someone with abilities beyond the typical human.

Much of this book reads like the X-Men, with a school for kids with abilities and someone who goes rogue and destroys seemingly without reason. The reader gets the story from a Avi and Fahima, an adult Resonant who works at the Bishop school. Part of the story is a thriller, with Avi trying to track down and understand what's going on, part of it is a look at our reactions to the 'other' and when that 'other' is potentially dangerous - how do we react on a larger scale.

I really liked the book...until the end, which felt abrupt and ended up leaving the reader with no answers and only theories. I'm going to guess there is a plan for a second book, but I really don't like a book that can't stand on its own. Don't wrap things up because you've reached an acceptable number of pages and leave the reader (and the characters) hanging.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Avi has been a year out of the hospital but still has that same dream. Than his phone rings and it is Louis who works with Homeland Security. Avi had been a reporter but had written nothing for a year. Louis was Avi’s friend . He said it was weird and to look at the two clips of film he had sent him. Avi had a prosthesis for his left leg from the knee down. Emmeline is Avi’s and Kays seven year old daughter. Emmeline has a strange assuredness. She seems to know things as if she comes prepared for all the big moments in her life with some of the small ones. Emmeline said”today things will start.” He sees the message from Louis with two videos in it. One from last week and one from a month ago. He recognizes the dates. The older one is the bombing at the mall outside of D.C. nineteen killed. Homeland identified the killer and he was also said to be killed. The most recent was in Roseland . about an hour from there, near Kay’s mothers. Salem Baptist church- a black church. Two killed. Avi called Louis and said he was watching the mall film and there was no blast. Than Louis said watch the other one he would wait. Then he watched the other still no blast. A white boy walks toward the pastor he said you can’t be here, and tells Miss henderson to call the cops. The boys in a flat and emotionless voice says don’t bother and then there is a flash again white. Avi met Louis at the site and there was nothing to show what had happened, no debris, nothing. Avi had an obsession with bombs. Through college and grad school bombs haunted Avi’s dreams. Avi got his first embed in 2003.Ayear before he met Kay. it was there he met Louis whose company he was stuck with for two weeks. Avi was in the market when some idiot blew himself up. He spotted the bomber before it happened. Buyers moved slowly, sellers dashed. The bomber plodded, unrushed but deliberate. Avi was far enough away from the blast to remain standing and unscathed, mentally recording people’s frenzied reactions. The Washington Post picked up the piece he wrote. It won the kinds of awards that were being given to well written war journalism at the start of things. Other assignments and embeds offers came in. A few days after Emmeline’s second birthday he got a call from Newsweek about an embed in Damascus. He clued to go. When he got back kKy and he had a talk he could take a foreign assignment once a year . he could cover domestic terrorism, school shootings, and subway station gas attacks. He’d piclk up local murder stories for the Trib. Mostly he took care of Emmeline and the house. Kay gifted him those terrible vacations because she understood something in him that Avi couldn’t articulate. His need. In stories where people find out they are special, part of them already knows. Owen curry didn’t have that part. He was special, but what he had done…. Anger spewed out of him, now there was awhole in the food court and some people were dead. Amanda was gone cut to nothing.Than he landed in a room - not his though, a man said you are important, you are special. Owen said he wasn’t but the man said only special people can come here. One in a thousand. It’s what gives him his ability. He told Owen that he takes the emptiness inside him and lets it out -like at the food court. After Owen gets back home he lets it out and sends his mother to the void. Than the man in in his kitchen. He says” You can’t stay here.” They’ll find you. I have a place for you to hide. The man said he was owen’s friend. He gave him gifts: a bus ticket to Chicago, a stack of money, than he gave him a cool liquid thing on Owen’s skin, it went to his ear and he said so we’ll never be apart. His friend talked to him in his ear. And said” we’re here to be shepherds and what does that make them?” Owen said “Sheep”. His friend said “Livestock, cattle.It’s important you learn to think of them that way.” Than his friend said he wanted owen to use his ability at the First Corinthians Church in Roseland . But Owen felt the vibration from the church and left. He took the Salem Baptist Church instead. When Owen was in the motel bathroom he knew three other people were in the other room with t4e vibration but they said they were from the opposing team. Avi is taken through his office in the attic to another house. There are four people there. A Man offers his hand and said he is Kevin Bishop. The special people are called resonants and their special abilities manifest as they get older. There is even a school for special kids to help them control their abilities called Bishop School. Kevin said he had read Avi’s work. He also said he and the people here had the same abilities as Owen had But he said Owen was a very sick man but if he became the face of their people- who were also human- they would all be branded as monsters. Kevin said it was time to go public for who and what they were. He also said it would only be a matter of time before another Owen curry is exposed. Before that happens they’d like to provide some context. They’d like his help. They also told him they had originally come to his house for Emmeline as she was like them and was very powerful.They also have a shared inner world called the Hive and Emmeline had been there but she hadn’t talked as she had to learn how to talk there.
I had mixed feelings on this book and yet I still liked it. I would have liked to rate this a 3.5. I loved there was a lot of action. This was had a mutant vibe to it. But was still different. I liked the plot. I liked the characters and surprises we got as we read on. But I think there were a few too many POV. I got confused at times. This dragged for me at times but not enough i wanted to quit reading this book. I felt this had more or less a cliffhanger ending and I hate cliffhangers. This grabbed me right from the start and kept me until the end which disappointed me. But as you can see I had mixed feelings.

The Nobody People by Bob Proehl, is a novel about individuals with extraordinary abilities. To say this is a superhero story, though, is selling it short. Proehl explores many very human themes - "otherness", fear that leads to bigotry and violence, the earnest, muti-faceted relationships between husband and wife, father and daughter, brother and sister, teacher and student. It's a beautiful read that deals with the ugliness in society, but also the ways in which community and family can lift us up.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview The Nobody People by Bob Proehl.
I am still thinking about this book. The premise is a group of different people with "special skills" - They are able to do things that others cannot, but they are outcasts in a landscape where so many are alike.
Their diversity brings alot of problems to each of them because they face the challenges of being different and facing a climate of unacceptance. They have special powers and they have hid for many years, but now they are coming out and what they face is a world that conflicts with what they stand for and what they believe. The topic is timely and the metaphors are clear.
3.0 stars.

The Nobody People by Bob Proehl wasn't what I was expecting, but also I wasn't fully disappointed. I first say and her of this novel when I attended Bookcon. The beginning starts off with a bang! i was on the edge of my seat trying to figure out what the heck was going on. At about chapter three I got the X-men vibe (I love X-Men btw).

The story lines were great and i wished they were expanded much more. I wanted to know of the charcters back stories. I am more of a stand alone when it come to books but this one could have really been introduced as a series. Overall this was a good read.


Thanks to Random House-Ballantine and NetGalley for providing me with a DRC of this novel.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

*REVIEW* 🌟🌟🌟🌟
The Nobody People tells the tale of a group of people, kids, who should not, but do, exist. Called The Resonants, they decide to emerge from hiding and show themselves to the world. Good or bad idea? The world is not kind to those who are different. This story is no exception. They are faced with judgment, ridicule and discrimination of race, sexual orientation and gender identity. And, questions arise about their powers and the uses of them being lawful, etc. Things look bleak. Obviously, the premise has been written before, but this story is engaging with its underlying ethical questions and moral values. How would you feel about a group of people with superpowers? Yay or nah? The subject is definitely debatable. Fans of action hero movies and comic books should try this book. I enjoyed the story overall and found it thought provoking and compelling.

Avi thought he had been cured of his itch for dangerous stories by the IED that took his leg. Then the most important story of his career starts inside his house. There are people called Resonants with extraordinary abilities. His daughter is one of them. Bishop runs a school for Resonant children, and having Avi break the news of their existence is part of his plan to avoid genocide. But superpowers and careful planning are no match for fear and bigotry, especially when stoked by Resonant factions with less benevolent goals. Warning: major cliffhanger..

I had such high hopes after it was compared to Recursion. And I tried, really tried to like it... but sadly, it just was not for me. I’m very sad to say this was my very first (ever) DNF. I put it down and picked it up 3-4 times and finally gave up at 40% after I realized that it made me completely stop reading. I can’t really pin point what didn’t work for me, I think we were just not compatible?! Please go check out the reviews and I hope you enjoy it if you decide to pick it up!

The Nobody People is a novel that is so similar to the stories of Marvel's X-Men that I wonder about infringement on the franchise. Mutants, I mean Resonants, are humans who secretly walk among us, who have special powers. Sometimes those powers are clearly defined (like being filled with high energy blue light or being able to throw people into a null space or read people's minds or even control their minds) and other times we are left wondering. Resonants can be very good or very bad or occasionally confused about what makes a person one or the other. Resonants are running an Academy and are ready to reveal themselves to the world, which may be at their own peril, since the world has not proven itself ready to be intolerant of an intolerance for difference.

Reader, I struggled with this book. Many characters, some never clearly defined, and so many storylines that evolved at an odd pace. And it just felt so derivative. If you're going to redo the X-Men, I just think you could strive for something more.

I received a Digital Review Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to Del Rey Books and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.

This was an engaging but ultimately frustrating mess. There's enough characters and plots for two books in this one title, and this is clearly gearing up for a part two next fall to clean up the corner this book paints itself into. There's a lot to like here - X-Men style special abilities! A battle of good mutants vs. less-good mutants! Hogwarts but for teens with special abilities who have teen problems! And yet, I finished this book not really feeling energized for book two.

As I mentioned, there's a lot of plot threads happening simultaneously, which the book tries to smooth around by playing fast and loose with time (I had trouble keeping track of how many years had passed since events early in the book multiple times, and I wish more time had been spent with them) and eventually offing a bunch of its cast along the way (don't form attachments!). The last third of this was a mess as various true intentions were revealed and all of the machinations for book two were fully set up, and it was very muddled.

I wanted to love this book but I couldn’t get past part two and the heavy X-Men retelling. It didn’t feel like there was enough going on to get invested in the characters early on. I couldn’t get past this section and DNF. Thank you for the chance to read an advanced copy.

In many novels including magical realism, there is a sense of wonder and humor to accompany the arduous path of the protagonists on their way to some sense of triumph and closure. This is not one of those novels. This is tragedy all the way through, and there's no sense of closure. This is perhaps 75 percent of the full novel. I was disappointed in the (lack of an) ending.

This review is a for a galley copy kindly provided by NetGalley and Penguin Random House.

If you’re an 80s/90s kid that grew up on X-men comics and/or Saturday morning cartoons then this is a must read. Don’t question it. Just put it in your pre-order list and read it. It’s a nostalgia gut-punch. It’s the angst and grittiness the story of human mutants in a world that doesn’t know whether to revere or revile them, tried to bring since the comics were first published.
But this book brings it. But it’s grittier, more real and devastatingly relevant.
But be prepared. The book is unflinchingly violent. It touches from race, LGBTQA visibility and acceptance, to mass violence, domestic terrorism, misogynistic/incel ideologies, toxic masculinity, nerd culture-you name it, it’s in there and it’s intense.
I hazard more than a guess that Proehl is a fan and this is one of those cases where the fanfic is just as good as the original works. It’s the story of mutants and their leaders-one an almost omnipath, who believes in coexistence with humans via lawful protection and proper education through the school he has built for them in NY. The other, his former friend, who believes the hatred humans have for mutants will never change and peace is impossible.
Of the several protagonists is a girl with almost limitless power.
If that sounds familiar, it seems Proehl intended it so, as the book is belies an encyclopedic knowledge of pop-culture references.
Be also forewarned the ending is not that of a stand-alone and may leave you tearing your hair out.
It’s a visceral, action-packed, dystopian story. Bust out those cartoon bedsheets and settle in.

Really intriguing look at the idea of heroes, or just people with abilities, being revealed in society and how "normal" people would react to that. Some stuff was pretty rough to swallow, and more than a few events reflected real events happening in today's world to minority populations in the US (ahem Muslims, immigrants, etc). The story strayed a bit from the main characters, which was unusual but which I kind of liked. Also, the main characters died, which is yet another unusual occurance that I thought was actually kind of captivating. I really want a sequel, and I think I heard mention of one on Goodreads. This story was definitely well-told and really interesting, if not tough to read through at times, mostly due to the resemblance to real world events and politics.

Like
- grey area of good and bad
- contemporary social commentary through "superheroes"
- role of media/journalist/talk show hosts in politics


Dislike
- want to see part of the story through younger resonants eyes
- (maybe a lil preachy?)