Flash Fire

I received an ARC from Netgalley
TW: gun violence, police brutality
4.3

If you too enjoyed sort of turning off your brain and just watching Nick do his thing chaotically yet with good intentions, yet were uncomfortable with the way the police were treated in The Extraordinaries, I have good news! Now, if you enjoyed all of that but couldn't handle the second hand embarrassment, I have tragic news.

Klune has spoken about his audience's reaction to the cop centric parts of the first book, and how he didn't think it through and planned to do better. That amounted to what is, no holds barred, a complete 180. Honestly, I was kind of worried how it was going to be handled, since too big a break too abruptly would be incredibly out of character, but I do think Klune handled it well by giving Nick the same information he was given and letting the reader see the shift in understanding.
The only issue this brings forth is that Klune definitely goes overboard at places trying to make it clear what all of the problems are and explaining Nick's feelings. It feels a bit like being hit over the head by the halfway point. And while I'm glad Gibby and her parents are involved in the conversation having so much of the argument be on their shoulders made me uncomfortable- it sometimes feels as if these characters are given the emotional labor of having to explain racism, and are always given the mantle as the angry people who are anti-cop. (The only other Black person is the Good Cop which... eh.) Now, of course, these are fictional characters who don't actually have emotional labor, and it's important to highlight the voices of POC in these matters, but it does feel like it tips over the line at times. I think Klune did as well as he could as a singular White author who has no lived experience with this, but I feel like he could have gotten some better outside advice in certain sections.

Onto that second hand embarrassment! The humor in this book... I needed a good distracting, light hearted book when I picked this one up and I was really hoping it would work out for me and get me out of my own head and actually invested in the book. The result? I was shouting on about page 10. Yes, this book's humor relies a lot of second hand embarrassment and cluelessness, as the first one did, but for some reason it works better for me in this one. That doesn't mean there weren't places where I was groaning or yelling at Nick for making terrible choices, but that's all part of the experience. Maybe this is another "turn your brain off" scenario, but I was definitely cry laughing so I'm just going to call the humor Good and leave it at that.

The pacing in this book is also better than in the first book. While I didn't have huge complaints in that department for The Extraordinaries, it did sometimes feel like Klune didn't know entirely where the focus should be. I didn't feel that way in this book. It reads fast, it stays compelling, it asks and answers questions in a way that keeps you excited and makes you want to keep going. Especially at the end! I didn't actually know that there was going to be a third book, and I was downright jazzed when a plot point emerged and I realized there wasn't time in this one to tackle it.

I was excited to pick up this book because of one piece of information teased near the end of the first book, and it's handled so well in this book while also not letting it take complete center stage and keeping the flow of the story going. There are a ton of new elements added into this book and implications about what's to come, and it keeps it so fresh and interesting.

This book does not suffer even slightly from Second Book Syndrome!
There are parts of this story that felt a little unnuanced, and some more juvenile parts that I just didn't personally enjoy as much, but all in all it's a really fun book that's leading the way for a hopefully equally fun third book.