What a roller coaster of a book. I started out disliking it. I did not realize it was a young adult book before I started and it was definitely a cliche young adult book at the start. Great idea, not great writing, pointless romance, testosterone fueled action - it just wasn't doing it for me. It didn't have the wonder of Mister Monday, the charm of Howl's Moving Castle, or the humor of The Lightning Thief. Overall not impressed. But then halfway through, things improved a lot. Massive spoilers ahead. In the second half (view spoiler)[Megan dies and the stupid romance subplot is killed which made me so happy. Then a lot more of the plot is revealed as the spice become better understood. Some of the reveals were obvious and for some I had an idea they might turn out that way. But I didn't see some of them. Still super excited to learn the source of the epics. (hide spoiler)] I really like the idea of superheroes and it took me a while to get over the non-physics of their powers, but it's a great exercise of the imagination. Looking forward to the rest of the series.