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Dreadnought  By  cover art

Dreadnought

By: April Daniels
Narrated by: Natasha Soudek
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Publisher's summary

Danny Tozer has a problem: She just inherited the powers of Dreadnought, the world's greatest superhero. Until Dreadnought fell out of the sky and died right in front of her, Danny was trying to keep people from finding out she's transgender. But before he expired, Dreadnought passed his mantle to her, and those secondhand superpowers transformed Danny's body into what she's always thought it should be. Now there's no hiding that she's a girl.

It should be the happiest time of her life, but Danny's first weeks finally living in a body that fits her are more difficult and complicated than she could have imagined. Between her father's dangerous obsession with "curing" her girlhood, her best friend suddenly acting like he's entitled to date her, and her fellow superheroes arguing over her place in their ranks, Danny feels like she's in over her head.

She doesn't have time to adjust. Dreadnought's murderer - a cyborg named Utopia - still haunts the streets of New Port City, threatening destruction. If Danny can't sort through the confusion of coming out, master her powers, and stop Utopia in time, humanity faces extinction.

Original cover art copyright Diversion Publishing Corp.

©2017 April Daniels (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Featured Article: Audible Essentials—The Top 100 LGBTQIA+ Listens of All Time


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What listeners say about Dreadnought

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Beating super villains? Easy. Self-acceptance...?

As a very queer trans lady, this story was relatable on a multitude of levels. While I haven't had *every* verbal battle with my parents as Danielle, I could repeat about 90% of them from memory while they were happening.

I feel I should address some issues that certain groups of people might have with this story.

First, cis people will probably think that Danielle talked about being trans too much. They might think that no one would say that things that Graywytch said. Neither of these are valid criticisms. When a trans person is closeted and then even more when they come out pretty much the entire weight of western society tries to shove them back into repressing or suppressing their identity. It happened to me, and I've seen it happen to three of my friends. Fighting back is a constant struggle even when we've known the truth for years. Danielle going through it was simultaneously painful and affirming. As for Graywytch, well... Let's put it this way. I only rarely get mad at fictional characters, and until now, I have never so desperately wanted to see one end up dead. Why? Well, because she uses the same rhetoric and tactics as real-life TERFs. I half think that April just copied some TERF's post for one of Graywytch's rants. The spelling, more than anything, gives it away -- a classic TERF practice is to spell "women" as "womyn." If you thought that her rant was too heavy-handed, then please, please take it up with the women that police our gender, and get them to stop.

Secondly (and that was a pretty long first point), I'd like to talk to the other trans people who might want to read this. If you haven't made peace (in whatever form) with your family situation, you might want to wait to read this. Get it, and let yourself wait until you're ready. Vindication and validation can wait for you in your pocket -- in the form of a fifteen-year-old girl. And she is fifteen and just out as trans and lacking any other queer people to support her. Keep that in mind with some of the language she uses. Be kind to her -- she's got a lot of internalized stuff to work through. On top of rhat, she hasn't had support in working through it - quite the opposite, in fact -- and she's so incredibly young.

That stuff aside, I had a few minor quibbles with the writing itself, mainly in terms of word repetition and the passage of time feeling more like something I had to keep track of than something visible in the world. That makes some of the dramatic irony seems strange until you think back on realize that enough time has passed for certain things to no longer be obvious to the characters. Despite those minor issues I had with it, I like the use of a superhero story to explore the almost illogical reality of domestic abuse. It really underscores how physical power can have so little bearing on the situation as to be meaningless.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to a friend (and have already, in fact), and I will be picking up the sequel.

I don't know if you read the Amazon comments, April, but if you do, good on you for writing this. Thanks for representing me.

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175 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Spectacular!

Listened straight through in a single sitting! I worried that the magical transformation would be cliché and strip Danny of her transness like I've seen so many times before, but it was so far from that! Hell, the speech in chapter 7 is one of the most powerful pieces of trans affirmation I've ever heard. Could not recommend this book enough!

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61 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Not a superhero story.

********
TLDR:
Transgender coming of age story set in a superhero world.
Main character whines and complains way too much.
Main character is a Mary Sue.
Pointless characters and character-based drama.
Story is repetitive and eventually I lost interest.
********

I'm always excited for a new superhero series, because it my favorite type of world to escape into, and there just aren't enough out there. This, however, is not a superhero story. It's a coming-of-age story with a strong transgender theme that happens to be in a superhero world. That's actually fine, because that's pretty interesting to me, too, but it was very poorly executed. I zone out while listening, so I can't tell you the number of times or pages the main character spent whining and WHINING about her life, but it was excessive, repetitive, and boring, and it really turned me off to the whole book.

The characters were very real, but they were that kind of "I wish this impossibly stupid person didn't exist" real that you see in overly dramatic shows like The Walking Dead, where their sole purpose is to make the audience angry, create unnecessary drama, and never add anything of value to the show. That said, if you DO like pointless drama, most of the characters here will interest you.

The Mary-Sue-ness of the character wasn't an issue for me, because, again, the point of the story is not about superheroes and superpowers; it's a coming of age story, but if you don't like Mary Sues, you should avoid this.

I stopped listening towards the end of the story, when the "twist" was revealed and it just annoyed me so much I switched to a silent commute, instead, but the plot is very generic. As far as coming of age stories go, it makes very little progress, consisting of nothing more than repetitive motions back and forth along the same railroad tracks of thought.

Anyway, it wasn't for me, but it might be for you. Depends on what you like. Give it a go if you enjoy the primary themes I mentioned and aren't turned off by the negatives I described.

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37 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

whiney

very whiney novel. if you enjoy kids whining than listen or read. I for one thought it was a good adventure full of crybabies

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26 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A wonderful new take on a coming-of-age/coming-out story

I loved Danny the main character. She is wonderfully drawn by the author. I think the book is great balance of superhero action and teen introspection. Her experiences of coming out as trans, the excitement and the hurt, the family that shuns her and the family she begins to create, all feel true to the experience of many trans kids. I do wish there was a cathartic shouting match with her father where she really got to tell him off. But we don’t always get that release :) It would also be interesting to dig deeper into the conflict between Greywitch and Danny, maybe offer the counter argument from another superfeminist. All the conflict Danny faces is real and the hateful things said come from reality. However, it’d be cool to see some nuance or depth explored so the characters weren’t so black and white or that showed growth... maybe the parents will get woke in the next few books and their can be reconciliation :) The superhero world that April Daniels creates is interesting and more superhuman than hero. I love the special powers economy she creates!

My only criticism is the narrator. Most of her voice work is great. However, it drives me crazy when people fall back on Southern accents when voicing people who are dumb/poor/mean. The story is set in Washington State near Seattle. Why would there be Southern accents?! Please adjust for next book!

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26 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Flawed and perfect, this book has something to say

It's a mashup of transgender coming of age and comicbook superhero. At it's best, the superhero aspects of this book mimic and reinforce a story of a young woman struggling for identity. At it's worst, they distract from a far more compelling plot.

After all, how can a supervillain bent on world domination compete with a father intent on trapping his daughter in the wrong body?

But Daniels realizes this and manages to keep the coming of age plot alive throughout the book, only neglecting it for a few chapters. The opening, in particular, is striking, as the author doesn't pull any punches and lets us know exactly what it feels like to be transgendered. Yes, the main character is vulnerable, and at times weak, but aren't we all? If she were overly confident it would destroy an inner struggle that is so fascinating.

I wish she would have explored the family a bit deeper, David and the mother both seem like they weren't fleshed out enough, and the issues at school seem to have been glossed over.

While I do feel like Daniels doesn't quite have the formula down just yet, it's a new formula and well worth your attention. I look forward to seeing what she can do in the future.

Soudek's performance is engaging, and fun. All the characters have distinct voices. The book is written in the present tense which would normally annoy me to no end, but Soudek puts a lot of effort into inflecting in just the right way to keep the prose clear and understandable.

(On a technical note, there are several pops in the recording (maybe 40 in all) where you can hear edits. This can be avoided if you only cut and stitch a recording where the waveform is at zero)

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20 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Lot of StrawMan Arguments, but Climax is suspenseful

In my opinion, the bad people in this book seem to be pulled from the authors person life probably.
The arguments of antagonists might arise in real life, but with fiction of this magnitude, it just seems like straw manning.

The narrator can only do American and southern accents ( maybe that’s what they were to be). Hard to tell who talks. You can hear the room she’s in.

But the endings pretty suspenseful.

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19 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Self-Obsessed Trans Hero makes Trans look bad

I never thought transgender folks might be transgender due to mental illness until I read this book. The sheer volume of I and Me statements is enough to make me queasy. The main character is so obsessed with herself that she ignores learning about herself, her friends, her relationships, the world around her or pretty much everything else. She basically spends the entire time going "I'm a girl!, that's what's important" while the world is imploding around her. The supportive characters all spend time saying extra nice things about her or using her like a lost child. Everyone who is against her is a characterization of overblown hostility and insanity who are so unimportant they aren't even voiced just described as saying stuff add adjective. The forced drama of omg he said this isn't that terrible really detracts from the story. Completely led by emotion she stumbles through getting the folks around her hurt while crying qoe is me the whole time. If I hadn't met and been around healthy well adjusted transgender as a UU I would think they are all nuts after reading this book.

That being said the narrator is very good. I wouldn't have been able to get through the story otherwise.

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Awesome story with a trans badass

absolutely loved it and it's really meaningful to finally have a character I connect with

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

An incredible turd.

This is pandering and shockingly bad. I had high hopes in the beginning. It took me two hours of hoping the cliches would settle down but instead they intensified to the point of absolutely nauseating bullshit. If you’re trans than I could see you enjoying this purely as a mental masturbatory comic strip. I would except more excitement in storytelling coming from a 12-year-old.

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11 people found this helpful