Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Brief plot summary: yes, it's like x-men. It IS the kind of story you've read before. Brilliants, a genetic anomaly, are a small segment of the population with special abilities. They are treated by most as a threat, a group to be strictly controlled and used like tools or instruments. A secret agent figures out the big bad conspiracy, gets the girl, and saves the day. If you have good taste in books, don't read this, or else you will be slogging through it. It's just another book written solely to be adapted into a movie so the author can get rich. Here's my lengthy take on it: Let's begin with the main character, Nick Cooper. He's the new American Dream man, what the author probably thinks is every millennial male's ambition (more on that below). He's white, mid-thirties, wealthy, a secret agent, and divorced, yet adores his 2 children. So basically it's implied that he's got a free pass to sleep around yet he's *still* a committed family man and therefore not an A-hole. Cooper actually gets along with his ex-wife really well in the story, -there's not really any good reason presented as to why they split in the first place. Cooper's character development is practically zero, in large part because he has very little character to begin with. He begins with what I like to call implied badassery. The reader is simply supposed to latch on to our protagonist from the very beginning, feeling good when things go well for him, and vice versa. Cooper is instantly suggested/implied to be intelligent, clever, and unstoppable in hand-to-hand combat right from the first scene. He's always right and righteous in his decision making, no matter what. He crudely expresses (in his thoughts) every base desire for food, sleep, money, power, and sex that an unsavory, average middle class white teenage/millennial male has. He supposedly loves truth, justice, and the American way, and is patriotic to the point of getting "the equivalent of a patriotic hard-on" when he hears a good Presidential speech. Yet, he cares little for the law or due process. In one scene he flies through traffic lights, speeds, and mounts the curb/sidewalk with his gas-guzzling sports car (or was it an SUV? I can't remember) just so he can console and hug his ex-wife over the fact that his daughter is going to be tested for 'brilliance'. He murders people mercilessly simply because they don't give him what he wants (such as information), and has slaughtered people in their own home just because his obscure federal agency says they're terror suspects. Nick Cooper loves America and everything it stands for, yet cares nothing for due process or the right to a trial. He's an unconvincing character who has no character to him whatsoever. This book is written for a millennial audience. It's almost funny how obvious it is. What with the references to Sriracha sauce and hoppy micro-brewed beer, to the use of the word "douchey" as an adjective, to the "artsy", or shall I say "indie" portrait photo of the author on the back cover (also below at the bottom of the amazon reviews). The one thing that might actually be accidental social commentary is the apathy Cooper feels toward the treatment of Brilliants (seen as the enemy) and Brilliant children (separated from parents, abused, and brainwashed in the Academy) that magically goes away when all of a sudden HIS kid might be put in an academy. In an instant, while no Brilliant was worth his time or effort to end the abuse before, now that his kid is under threat, Brilliant abuse is suddenly evil and he needs to stop it or die trying. This aspect of the story reflects the behavior of 21st-century Americans, who overall DO NOTHING about injustice done to others but who take up arms in a flash when they personally, their friends, or family members begin to suffer said injustice.