A fun, fresh superhero story filled with characters that leap from the page with their realness. Diana Williams writes with so much heart and joy, with such a focus on making sure her characters feel authentic. There is so much to love about this book: its commitment to diversity, the strong community (if you are a fan of found family, then definitely read), the heartwarming parent-child relationships (especially if you're tired of ya where adults do nothing in the face of the danger their kids encounter), and a tight friendship at the core of it all.

I loved this book so much! The worldbuilding was great and I loved all of the characters. I can't wait to read more by Williams.

This is a Sci/‘-fi/fantasy book with an aliens (symbionts) are turning up on our world from other touching realms. Alora comes from a family who have powers, and along with her friends she is thrust into the battle. This one wasn’t for me. The author was aiming for a target audience of black girls 13 to 24, and I am not that demographic. The epilogue was fast paced, then turns to deal with teenager’s emotions and feelings and introducing the main characters and learning about their skills and the returns to fast paced battling with the ‘bosses’. I’m sure a younger reader than me will be captivated this book.. D.L. Williams the author does tell the reader that this book deals with gender choices, this is true, but she has dealt with this very appropriately. Thank you to W. M. Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC. The views expressed are all mine, freely given

This was a DNF. I took a chance on requesting it via Netgalley, because I try to read books by people who are different from me, and I've come across a few real gems that way. After all, I'm a fan of fantasy and SF, which are all about the experiences of people who are different from me in one way or another.

What didn't work for me was that the blurb and the prologue promised me a supers story, but when I got to the first few chapters (they're labelled "Book 1," "Book 2," etc., but they're chapter length and work like chapters, so I'm calling them chapters), it was all early YA concerns, mostly-mundane detail, and a flood of cultural touchstones (pop-culture figures, brands, and the like). Now, I don't like a mass of mundane detail <a href='https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3088806489'>when William Gibson does it</a>. I don't enjoy a flood of cultural touchstones when someone of my own generation, like the author of <i>Ready Player One</i>, does it. So it's not the specific details or the specific culture that I have a problem with; it's just that there's too much of it for the amount of story I was getting, plus it wasn't what I came in looking for.

On the positive side, the copy editing, even in the pre-release version I got for review from Netgalley, is a lot closer to fully professional than most books I get from there (and a good few I get from elsewhere).

This was exactly what I was hoping for from a super-hero novel, the Alora Factor has a great start and keeps you invested in what was happening til the end. I enjoyed the characters, they were interesting and what I was hoping for in them. The world was interesting and the plot worked so well, I hope there is more in this universe.

“I’ve seen three different faces over the past two weeks” The young woman who's been doing all of the talking takes a hesitant step forward, but doesn't get too close. “I think at least one of them is at or near the stairwell at the end of the hall because we were warned that if we ran that way, we’d be caught. And it’s too high to jump, so that’s our only escape route.” She rubs her right hand up and down her left arm a few times.