Just Call Me Superhero by Alina Bronsky

Just Call Me Superhero Reviews

• 
  JimZ

  I started reading this last night…actually I read about two-thirds of it and I think I was going to give it a ‘3’ and then picked it up this morning and it went down to ‘2’ then it became like “why am I reading this?”…only to say that I finished it so-I-can-warn-people-to avoid-reading-this-and-not-to-make-the-same-mistake-that-I-did…something like that. 😐
  
  Adolescent male, Marek, maybe 17 or 18, gets face grievously ravaged by a Rottweiler and people visibly blanch when they see him in public, so he has a big chip on his shoulders. Mother enrolls him in a self-help group of adolescents with other disabilities. Marek’s father, before hideous injury, ran off with the family’s au pair, Tammy, and got her pregnant and so Marek has a brother, Ferdi, and the former au pair – now-stepmother, Tammy. Halfway through novel, Marek’s father (and Tammy’s husband) dies.
  
  We are told that when the au pair, Tammy, lived with the family and Marek was 15 that the au pair French-kissed Marek. I guess she still has the hots for Marek because after her husband dies and before the funeral, she sleeps with Marek. After the funeral she sleeps with him. What in the hell???
  
  The writing gets more and more Hallmark-ish as the novel winds down…Marek was sort of an asshole during most of the novel but during the period of preparations for the father’s funeral he does a 180 and becomes more caring (unbelievable). Simultaneously with the plot now in the realm of incredible, the writing gets really bad. To wit:
  • “Tammy’s hand trembled in the crook of my arm and I let go of Ferdi for a second and covered her fingers with my other hand. Her thick gold wedding ring had been warmed by the sun… Time-out by Jim: I did not know that the sun warms gold rings on one’s body. I used to wear a gold ring and I never once said “hoo-boy it’s gonna be a hot one today. Better remove my wedding ring!!!
  • Tammy goes to the funeral home and sees her husband in a coffin. She rushes to him and cries and kisses him. OK, that’s within the realm of possibilities. But then, wait: “My young stepmother kissed the face of my dead father… Tammy grew quiet and lay there with her head on the pillow, her cheek against his.” Time-out by Jim: So is that even possible? Coffins are narrow things. The pillow is really small and the head of the dead body is taking up most of the pillow. How could one lay one’s head next to the corpse on the pillow?
  • Marek’s brother is approximately 5 years old. “It’s fine,” I said and lifted Ferdi up. He was sweaty again and smelled like rye bread. Time out by Jim: Since when do people smell like rye bread? Where is this rye bread odor being exuded from his body? His skin? His breath? I’ve stood next to a lot of people in my day and they might reek of body odor or alcohol or garlic but rye bread? Does rye bread even smell?
  I just pulled these out near the end of the book. These are just examples. 😕
  
  I picked this book out because it is a Europa Edition and in the past I have greatly enjoyed reads from this publisher. This is Alina Bronsky’s third novel. Perhaps I should have picked her earlier works…her first book, ‘Broken Glass Park,’ was described as “the most astonishing debut in years’ by the Nurnberger Nachrichten, and ‘as a riveting debut’ by Publishers Weekly (starred review). Or her second book, ‘The ‘Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine’, was named a Favorite Read of the Year by both The Huffington Post and The Wall Street Journal, and a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly.
  
  Reviews:
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• 
  Tamara Agha-Jaffar

  
  Alina Bronsky’s
  Just Call Me Superhero, translated from the German by Tim Mohr, is told through the strong narrative voice of seventeen-year-old Marek. It is a compelling coming-of-age story in which the narrator learns about self-acceptance and the value of human connection.
  
  Marek’s face has been badly disfigured by an attack from a Rottweiler. His facial scars make it difficult for him to smile. He is very self-conscious about his looks, wears dark glasses to hide behind his disfigured face, and refuses to look at himself in the mirror. He disrespects his divorced mother, shows no sympathy for her, and addresses her by her first name. When his mother tricks him into a joining a support group for young people with disabilities, Marek more fully reveals his nature. He is cynical, resentful, self-absorbed, homophobic, insensitive, callous, irreverent, and tactless. He is also intelligent, observant, and very funny.
  
  Referring to the support group as “the cripple group,” Marek coolly assesses each of its members, including the leader whom he facetiously dubs “The Guru.” His attention is immediately drawn to a young, beautiful woman in a wheel-chair. As much as he resents the group, he agrees to join them on a week-long bonding retreat organized by the Guru. But when he receives news of his father’s sudden death, Marek is forced to cut short the retreat to attend his father’s funeral.
  
  Forced to help with the arrangements of his father’s funeral, Marek steps outside of himself and begins to show growth. He attends to the needs of his mother, young step-mother, and six-year-old step brother. He displays genuine concern for others, and is especially solicitous towards his mother and young step brother. He is shocked when his support group unexpectedly shows up to pay their respects. It slowly dawns on him that although people, including his young step-brother, may initially recoil at seeing his face, they ultimately move beyond his appearance and accept him for what he is and not for the way he looks. The novel concludes with Marek removing his dark glasses and looking at his reflection in the mirror.
  
  The novel explores an age-old theme: how much of our identity is tied up with the way we look? Marek learns people may initially judge you by your physical appearance, but, ultimately, how you look withers in significance to how you treat others. Alina Bronsky gives the theme a refreshingly new treatment by injecting laugh out loud humor, vivid imagery, keen observations, nimble pacing, well-developed characters, and a narrator who comes to recognize who we are is defined by the love we show for others.
  
  A compelling coming-of-age story and a delightful read. Highly recommended.
  
  My book reviews are also available at
  www.tamaraaghajaffar.com
• 
  Elizabeth

  I had a hard time rating this book. It fits anywhere between 2 and 3 stars for me.
  
  It is the story of a 17 year old boy whose face is mutilated in a dog attack, and is sent to group therapy for kids with disabilities. There he falls in love with a girl in a wheel chair. I know what you are thinking. The Fault in Our Stars? If TIFOS is a perky, golden retriever who sets out to please you, Just Call Me Superhero is the sardonic, European, cat who smokes cigarettes and throws eggs at the golden retriever.
  
  This book is VERY European. The dialogue is odd and doesn't flow that well (lost in translation, maybe?). The characters are very unlikeable. I would be willing to look past this point because I tend to like unlikeable characters, but most of them are not well constructed.
  
  I didn't actually mind this book. It was enjoyable for the moment, and it had a shocking, very vague, ending. My biggest gripe with the story, though, is the representation of the transgender character (you are never quite clear if he identifies as transgender, so I'll just refer to his name, Kevin). Yes, this story is told from the position of a boy who is, quite frankly, an asshole, with little regard to others, but I couldn't tell where the boy's negative comments about Kevin begin and where the author's end. There is a slightly redeeming story arc between the boy and Kevin, but I don't feel it justifies the cartoon-like representation of Kevin at the beginning.
  
  Overall, this book was kind of "eh" when I wanted it to be a "wow". There were glimmers of a great book hidden in certain scenes, but then the author would take it to weird places. Thankfully it was quick read.
• 
  Margaret

  Alina Bronsky is a very strong author, and so I was excited to read her new novel. It was a little too gimmicky for me, but a lot of the emotional struggles of Marek, who is horribly deformed by a dog attack before the novel begins, rang especially true. However, for someone new to the author I'd recommend
  Broken Glass Park instead.
• 
  Roger Brunyate

  Great voice, great start, but…
  
  "Bronsky's great gift is humor" says the reviewer from the LA Times on the cover of this book. Not quite so. Bronsky's great gift is voice, the voice of characters so inwardly damaged that they use humor as their only means of protecting themselves against an encroaching world. The humor of latter-day Holden Caulfields, smart, irreverent kids giving the finger to the polite world. But she does it so well—as I knew the moment I opened her first novel,
  Broken Glass Park, and was hooked by her homicidal, hurting heroine, torn between wanting to kill her father and immortalize her mother, whom he had shot in a drunken rage. In both that book and this one, she is well served by her translator, Tim Mohr.
  
  This time the protagonist is a sixteen-year-old boy named Marek. His face has been disfigured by an encounter with a Rottweiler, but he has other problems too, including a father who has deserted the family and a mother too busy with her career as a divorce lawyer to give him the time he needs. But she does get him into a support group, where he meets people of his age with a variety of other disabilities, all male except for one very beautiful girl in a wheelchair. Naturally, he can't stand any of the guys, but he keeps coming back for the girl, Janne, who alternates between being nice to him and telling him to bug off. When the guru in charge of the group takes them all off to the country for a week and starts videoing everything, including all the fights that break out, it begins to look like an episode of reality TV—but you can also see the possibility of some healing, even though Marek strenuously denies it.
  
  Then, just over halfway through the book, there is a complete change of setting and a new cast of characters. The unexpected death of Marek's father (a character we have not met up to now, so no spoiler) forces him to leave the group retreat and travel to the small town where he was born. There, he meets his little half-brother and spends time with his very young stepmother. This section is interesting too, taking us further along Marek's zigzag path towards rehabilitation, but it is almost as though it were a different book, and Bronsky were losing her narrative touch. At least one thing happens that I have trouble believing (or condoning if I do believe it), and just when you hope that Marek is pulling out of his self-loathing, he says something very cruel to a former friend. True, in the last few chapters, the others in his support group make a reappearance. I think there are meant to be revelations here that bring the whole story to a more hopeful conclusion, but either Bronsky is too oblique, or I am too obtuse to understand them.
• 
  Morris

  “Just Call Me Superhero”, by Alina Bronsky, is the story of a young man named Marek, who lives in modern-day Berlin. Marek was attacked by a rottweiler, leading to facial disfigurement, and is tricked by his mother into attending a support group. This forms the basis of the story.
  
  Make no mistake about it, Marek is far from a likable character. He is blunt, homophobic, a jerk to anyone who finds themselves unlucky enough to be in his company, and seems to have no problem with any of it. However, he is an also extremely well-developed character who shows a wonderful amount of growth by the end of the book.
  
  The wry humor had me literally laughing out loud at times. Bronsky knows exactly when to insert sarcasm and absurdity to break mounting tension. It makes what could be an extremely depressing book an enjoyable and somewhat lighthearted one.
  
  The only reason I gave “Just Call Me Superhero” four stars instead of five is the homophobia is very over-the-top. There is growth and resolution to it, but I believe some of the phrasing may be a result of it being a translation. As long as you keep this in mind, I recommend “Just Call Me Superhero”.
  
  This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher through the Goodreads First Reads program in exchange for an honest review.
• 
  Carol

  I'm not sure why the whole preamble of the group trip needed to be included. So many characters were one dimensional.
• 
  cat

  Really, more of a 2.5 -- and I had to go back and re-read the ending several times just to figure out the big reveal. Which made it not much of a reveal, I must say.
• 
  Megan Geissler

  disjointed, maybe the translation?
• 
  Claire

  This book is complicated - it discusses the survival of a group of kids with physical problems, and how the Guru (a mysterious old man) takes them to a magical place in Germany on the pretense of "self-help" or something like that, where they embark on missions of self-discovery.
  
  The main character, he has two mothers: a German one and a Ukrainian one, and one father, whose absence from his life is a big deal in the story for reasons I shouldn't explain as directly as I thought of them since this is such a popular translation.
  
  I liked this so much since it included a very long train trip, like the one I had to ride across quite a bit of China, so I could empathise a lot with the characters in that regard. Er, that's probably not the real reason, but I'm sleepy, trembly and don't know exactly what I'm saying.
  The real reason probably has more to do with having had to deal with a wheelchair for so long myself, and the other "disabilities" people have labelled me as having throughout undergraduate school.
  Or maybe the real reason has to do with how much Russian the Ukrainian mother used and how I've been on such a huge Tolstoy/Lenin/Gorky binge as of late (besides everything else), though I have such a rough time understanding that language in Roman letters, which is the doing of my first prepodavatel'nitsa *cringe* since she "convinced" me that spelling anything out in non-Cyrillic is spelling it wrong. In fact, now I'm shuddering, and I don't think it's from needing my anti-convulsant early... Let's check: преподавательница...
  That made me entirely stop shaking! All right, so I won't take anti-convulsants until late late night as originally planned.
  
  The Los Angeles Times says this author's great gift is humor, but I didn't find anything funny. These are just the things that happened. Maybe I shouldn't like it so much since I must therefore not really understand what I just read...
  But I found this book an important recent East Europe publication that is worth the time figuring out, as the title is particularly relevant to the story, and the other stuff.
• 
  Tuck

  i'm firmly in the bronsky camp, so my stars are aslant, she has ability to take reader to places they never expected and so far always has super strong characters who are both sympathetic and despicable.
  this one centers around a group of disabled young people brought together as therapy and voc rehab, who then DO come together as maturing people with their foibles and backstabbing and trust and love. with bronsky too, there is always a strong family (usually very f'''ed up) dynamic where reader sees the struggle between children and parents, and more importantly the why of the struggle. and her depictions of forceful, unreasonable, but understandable, russian and ukraine women/mothers are always very funny and horrific.
  
  
  
• 
  Nomnivor

  Mir hat das Buch nicht gefallen. Die Idee an sich war interessant. Was die Autorin daraus hat werden lassen, nicht. Nicht nur, dass immer wieder Sätze verdreht waren oder Worte gefehlt haben, die Geschichte an sich war einfach unausgegoren. Mittendrin schien es so, als wäre der Autorin die Puste ausgegangen, also hat sie ihren ganzen Plot über Bord geworfen und mit neuen Nebenfiguren und neuem Plot von vorne gestartet. Nur, um dann wieder auf den letzten Seiten zum ersten Plot zurück zu kommen und diesem ein Ende zu verpassen, das gar keinen Sinn ergibt.
  
  Das war wirklich nichts.
• 
  Francesca

  The book was alright, it's dry sense of humor comes through in a few places. The first thing it does is grab your attention, it really is hard to put down. The problem with the book is that you continue to read, waiting for an enticing story arc--or just an arc in general, and it does not come. The book has little character development is too general-way too much "surface writing." I was disappointed.
• 
  Audacia Ray

  I love Alina Bronsky's dark humor and will read anything she writes, but this one was not my fave. This is also the second book I've read in the last two months about a self-absorbed dude with an attitude problem and a face ruined from an accident.
• 
  Rikki

  like another reviewer said, this rates between a 2 and a 3 for me. Not horribly written, but not a particularly engaging story either. I put it down after reading about 1/2. Maybe I'll finish someday, but I'm ready to move on to something that hooks me.
• 
  Fragmentage

  Das mochte ich. Sehr. Es geht um einen nach einer Kampfhundattacke schwer entstellten Jugendlichen, der von seiner Mutter in eine Selbsthilfegruppe geschickt wird. Sehr bissig, sehr ehrlich, aber auch sehr emotional. Ich mag Bronskys ungewöhnliche Helden.
• 
  Vio

  Ok, this one was a bit of a disappointment. I struggled to finish it. I just couldn't get along with the narrative voice and I pretty much felt nothing for the characters.
  
  Scherbenpark to be read any time soon. :)
  
• 
  Laura

  Read at your own risk: homophobia, an unlikable hero (definitely not a superhero) and such a slow build that after 100ish pages there's no reason to care about any one we've met.
  
  DNF.
• 
  Naomi

  I chose this book on a whim while at the library, and began reading it without any expectations. I'm not a fan of YA novels in general, and didn't realize this was one when I borrowed it, but was pleased that it was a smooth read and one I was working through quickly (it took me two hours to read tops). However, now that I've finished it, all I can think is 'huh?'.
  
  My main criticism with this novel is that there are so many unanswered questions. Characters seem half-developed, and even those who play a bigger role aren't entirely fleshed out. The main character, Marek, holds a lot of resentment due to a dog attack that leaves him badly disfigured. This attack is referred to throughout, and hints are made about what led up to the attack and those involved, but nothing is explained. I get that the author has no obligation to present a story that's perfectly packaged, but considering this is a huge part of the story and the reason for Marek's behavior, it seems like the reader would benefit from more than vague hints that confuse more than explain.
  
  Also, perhaps I missed this (by the end I was reading rather quickly, and just wanted to finish), at the end of the novel, hints are made at the real identity (I suppose you could call it that) of the support group individuals. I didn't pick up on what this 'real identity' is supposed to be. If someone does know, please let me know, as maybe that'll make me like this novel a bit more. It just seemed like the novel was building up to something, or trying to, and then it fell flat at the end.
  
  Yet another criticism I have of this novel, as other reviewers have mentioned, is the representation of Kevin, one of the support group members. Some of the viewpoints, in general, are dated, and Kevin's treatment as a character is an example.
  
  I can't help but wonder if a lot of the issues mentioned above, and in other reviews, are due to it being translated. I won't turn down reading another of Bronsky's books in the future if I come across one, but I won't be seeking them out nor recommending this one to others.
• 
  Cara

  Marek was attacked and disfigured by a dog, so he cut off all contact with his friends and spends his life moping around and generally being an asshole to everyone. His mom tricks him into signing up for a support group of other people with disabilities, and he eventually goes on a trip with them, only because he has a crush on the girl of the group. The trip is cut short by family tragedy, and it ends with the support group supposedly coming around to support him through this tough period in his life. Except they don't, not really. And also, he has sex with his stepmother, which is a really confusing scene. I read it 3 times and I still didn't understand that's what happened. Maybe a problem with the translation or maybe it was just written to be confusing. I hate it when authors do that.
  
  This is one of those books that you don't really understand, but you think there must be something to it that you didn't get because otherwise why would it have been published in the first place and why would someone translate it to English? English-speakers aren't really worldly people overall and for a book to be translated to English there's usually something special about it, something that makes people think it's worth it. Is there something special about this book that I just don't get? I'd be ok thinking maybe I'm just too stupid to get it (and it wouldn't be the first time) but I actually don't think that's the case here. I think it was just trying to aim for that precise line of ambiguity that is neither too mysterious nor too manifest. It didn't quite make it. Still, it's an ok read, and I'm glad I won it as a Goodreads Giveaway. I think I would read something else by Alina Bronsky - it's possible she just hit the mark this time.
• 
  Brave

  2.5 stars.
  
  I realised that my library books were due back sooner than I expected, so I picked this up immediately as I'm hoping to finish all the library books before they're due back on Tuesday. (I only have one more after this!...I think/hope.)
  
  This book is pretty much packed full of asshole characters, situations that never fully become clear (maybe a lost-in-translation thing?), and some stereotypes I was not comfortable with (namely, about Kevin, referred to constantly as a "queen" [insert loud sigh here]). That said, the book itself isn't too bad, although there were definitely some translation errors (wrong forms of words, using "to" instead of "with," little things probably no one else will notice in their reading that I did and that pulled me out of the story a little bit). It was readable, lent itself well to being read quickly over the course of two days, but probably still not one I'd recommend to very many people. (I'd really only recommend it to people who want a sort of grittier TFIOS, or a TFIOS that's more believable.)
  
  It definitely turns that kind of "sick-lit" genre thing on its head. It wasn't anything that I expected, and I was okay with that.
  
  All said, I waffled between a 2 and a 3 star rating at the end. It's decent, there are absolutely some moments of redemption for the many of the things I've said here, and if you're interested, I'd recommend picking it up.
• 
  Tracy

  An overall evaluation of the novel is that it is uneven both in plot and structure. Throughout the read it's difficult to tell if 16 year old Marek, who has been badly disfigured due to a Rottweiler attack, is adjusting to his loss of looks and isolating himself as a result or if he's simply as selfish prat. Is his mother Claudia trying to motivate him with tough love or is she just exhausted by this boy? Her only emotional reveal is when she identifies the body of her deceased ex-husband--that passes in a flash. As for plot oddities, disability support group time is interrupted by the death of Marek's estranged father--yet why readers should care when Marek does/doesn't--who knows? Perhaps this reader was also offended by the assumption that a Ukrainian character is nothing more than a prostitute due to her ethnicity. If this book never makes it to your reading list, you'll be just fine.
• 
  Jai Lau

  At times, it seems that Marek should be read as an unreliable narrator and that his physical deformities are exaggerated in his head yet Marek's interactions with other characters at times (Janne and Tammy), seem to suggest a sexually confident male. Similarly, he switches between being helpful and considerate to being obnoxious and offensive, subservient and yielding to stubborn and inflexible. Plot-wise, there are things to like but again, the payoff is missing in most cases and there are missed opportunities. The book is split into two sections, Marek with the support group and Marek dealing with a family crisis. The writer should have ran with the first section longer as the introduction of Tammy and Ferdi as characters did not seem to add much to the story. Claudia and Marek's relationship could have been explored more and the guru ends up being much less significant than expected (what is his message?).
• 
  Lisa

  Wish I could give it 3.5 stars. Once I realized it was a coming-of-age story (YA) I rather enjoyed it. I never quite figured out the whole "guru" mystery though I have my theories. I liked the protagonist, Marek, and his evolving relationship to Claudia, his mom (whom he calls Claudia). The novel seems cut in half--the first with Marek and the "support" group headed by the guru, the second with his "family" during a major crisis. I enjoyed the second half more. Bronsky's an astounding writer though some of her metaphors felt forced and like I said, a little too much of the back story was missing leaving an ambiguous ending.
  
  Maybe YA readers will get it. Like the saying goes, I may not be young enough to know it all.
• 
  Alina Borger

  I was not a fan, and I wanted to be. The author and I share a first name, the book was translated from the Germann, and the target audience appears to be YA. But not one like-able character, a bizarre Ender-and-Bean twist on the ending and zero redemption ...didn't win me over.
  
  I stayed with it because (despite all of that) I was intrigued, and that is a clear testament to the writer's skill (or my determination to plow through my Read Harder Challenge.
  
  Triggers: rampant homophobia and anti-trans* language/attitudes, incest/sexual assault
• 
  Amy

  The blurbs about another book of hers were all about how funny and witty her previous book was, but that didn't pertain to this one. I got to page 80 and gave up. I felt I didn't know any of the characters and didn't want to spend another couple hours reading to finish the second half.
• 
  Virditas

  Not a bad read, but the protagonist is so dislikable, such an asshole and basic whiner than the book ends up less effective than it might. I miss Bronsky's more likable narrators from her earlier novels.
• 
  Debbie

  Disappointing. Maybe I just didn't get it. I really loved Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine and Broken Glass Park, but this book just didn't speak to me.
• 
  Lolly K Dandeneau

  I love Alina Bronsky but I think this will appeal far more to a younger audience. Isn't my favorite by her.