Along with all this, there is quite a bit of humorous dialogue. Like, for the first three or four chapters nothing happens. The book starts with huge amounts of exposition, flashbacks, flashbacks within flashbacks, extraneous scenes that aren’t critical to the moment, and very little action. For the first third of the book, I wasn’t sure. Novas Got Nerve delivered on the elements I was looking for… eventually. Love for the Cold-Blooded, or The Part-Time Evil Minion’s Guide to Accidentally Dating a Superhero by Alex Gabriel is one of my favourite books of all-time and I was hoping for a similar vibe with this book. Superheroes stories are one of my favourites subgenres in the m/m world – they tend towards humour, action, and quirky characters. Novas Got Nerve is a m/m superhero book told from the first person POV of twenty-year-old Rexley Nova, a manic pixie of a twink with superpowers, a bunch of superpowered friends and family, an infamous supervillain father, and a whole lot of trauma. Read Elizabeth’s review in its entirety here. I think readers will either be charmed by him, or very, very tired of him - and since the book is entirely from his POV, there is even time for both. He’s the best friend in the world, the smartest person in the room, the sparkliest snowflake in the blizzard, and the star of every show. He’s kooky and quirky, whimsical and wacky. He’s an elfin, beautiful twink with constant foot-in-mouth disease. Rex is the manic pixie dream boy of everyone’s dreams (or nightmares).

It’s a 500 page look into Rex’s life, rather than being a book about being a superhero, which means you’re going to get an earful (eyeful) of everything Rexley Xander Nova is.

It’s an interesting mix that isn’t fully explored in this book, which is 90% exposition and character building, 5% plot, and 5% world building. This is the first book in the Liquid Onyx series, which has both superheroes and supervillains (though the only supervillain in this book is Rex’s dead father), government agencies and agents, as well as witches and magic.

Novas Got Nerve by B.L. Jones