Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews (Tue Dec 03 00:00:00 CST 2024)

A seventh grader doing her best to navigate middle school, a secret crush, and new family dynamics wakes up with a life-altering superpower.Elliot "Ellie" Engle, a 12-year-old Black girl, has always been fine fading into the background with her comic books. Best friend Abby Ortega, who is cued as Latine, always seems to have the spotlight. Following an earthquake during a sleepover at Abby's house, Ellie wakes up feeling weird. She returns home to find her beloved pet, Burt the Betta Fish, has died. While giving his eulogy, Ellie touches Burt, and, to her disbelief, he bounces back to life. Superhero-loving Ellie's first thought is to keep her new abilities a secret or risk being shipped off to some institution like the X-Men's Xavier Institute. But she tells Abby-incidentally her crush and therefore the object of her other big secret. Together, they attempt to test her powers, until an unfortunate incident on frog dissection day in science class throws Ellie's life into a tailspin. Ellie must come to terms with hard truths, but along the way she learns she doesn't have to live her life in the shadow of others and that true friends will support you through everything. This fast-paced, humorous novel will have readers racing to the end as they fall in love with Ellie's quirky and authentic personality. Johnson deftly explores identity and responsibility to ourselves and others in this joyful coming-of-age story.Marvelous. (author's note) (Fiction. 8-12)

School Library Journal Starred Review (Fri Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Gr 4–8 —Twelve-year-old Ellie Engle is preparing to start junior high, and wondering what to do with the fluttery feelings she has for Abby, who has been the center of her universe as long as they've been friends. But when a random earthquake leaves Ellie with superpowers (including the ability to resurrect the dead), Ellie finds herself with bigger worries. Add to that her mom's struggles to pay the bills in the wake of a divorce, and Abby's determination to "make her mark" in their new school at all costs—including, perhaps, their friendship—and Ellie's whole world is turned upside down. Things get even worse when a viral video exposes her newfound powers and thrusts her into the spotlight. In lesser hands, these many plot threads might become tangled, but Johnson masterfully weaves them together to explore themes of belonging, identity, responsibility, friendship, heroism, and growing up. Ellie's voice is honest, warm, and sharply funny, and readers will enthusiastically root for her as she learns to love and celebrate herself for all that she is. Ellie is Black and Abby is Latina. VERDICT Joyful and magical. A first purchase for all collections.—Lauren Strohecker

Kirkus Reviews

A seventh grader doing her best to navigate middle school, a secret crush, and new family dynamics wakes up with a life-altering superpower.Elliot "Ellie" Engle, a 12-year-old Black girl, has always been fine fading into the background with her comic books. Best friend Abby Ortega, who is cued as Latine, always seems to have the spotlight. Following an earthquake during a sleepover at Abby's house, Ellie wakes up feeling weird. She returns home to find her beloved pet, Burt the Betta Fish, has died. While giving his eulogy, Ellie touches Burt, and, to her disbelief, he bounces back to life. Superhero-loving Ellie's first thought is to keep her new abilities a secret or risk being shipped off to some institution like the X-Men's Xavier Institute. But she tells Abby-incidentally her crush and therefore the object of her other big secret. Together, they attempt to test her powers, until an unfortunate incident on frog dissection day in science class throws Ellie's life into a tailspin. Ellie must come to terms with hard truths, but along the way she learns she doesn't have to live her life in the shadow of others and that true friends will support you through everything. This fast-paced, humorous novel will have readers racing to the end as they fall in love with Ellie's quirky and authentic personality. Johnson deftly explores identity and responsibility to ourselves and others in this joyful coming-of-age story.Marvelous. (author's note) (Fiction. 8-12)

Publishers Weekly (Tue Dec 03 00:00:00 CST 2024)

Comic book enthusiast Ellie Engle, who is Black, sees herself as the epitome of ordinary, and she’s content to dwell in the pressure-free shadow of her outgoing Latina best friend, Abby Ortega. But after an earthquake strikes Plainsboro, Ind., the day the girls start junior high, Ellie realizes she has a crush on Abby, and she also somehow manages to resurrect her own dead pet fish. Slowly, Ellie discovers that she can bring living organisms back to life, for a cost. Ellie, who sometimes experiences panic attacks, doesn’t want to cause trouble for her hardworking single mom, and she worries about how the powers of the supers in her comics affect their loved ones. But when popularity-intent Abby pressures Ellie to mask and even reverse her powers, Ellie is reluctant to let them go—even as knowledge of her abilities goes viral, leaving her no choice but to stand on her own two feet. Marrying her customary openhearted style with a necromancy-oriented origin story, Johnson (You Should See Me in a Crown) tackles the pains of growing up—changing bodies, shifting bonds, early crushes, and defining oneself on one’s own terms—making for a warmly rendered, lightly speculative love story about a girl learning to believe that she’s anything but ordinary. Ages 8–12. Agent: Patrice Caldwell, New Leaf Literary. (May)