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Third Class Superhero is the first complete book by short story writer Charles Yu. It starts off with a unique twist on the concept of super heroes, but it goes steam rolling down hill after that. This book is a collection of short stories that, to be blunt, are depressing and dreary. They’re well-written and introspective, but they’re still depressing, no matter how well the writer has mastered his craft.
The book’s title story is interesting, given all the resurgence in comic books and superheroes over the past six or seven years. It’s about a middle-aged man with meager super powers and his quest to become a legitimate hero. His world is populated with super-powered people who are licensed and dropped into categories by the government based on their powers and abilities. His are so weak that he’s forced to take a test every year just to keep his provisional status.
The rest of the book is about characters that are all missing pieces of what they need to be whole. None of them are really aware of what they’re missing—only that they’re incomplete and unable to do something about it. All of the following stories are morbid and listless. In one, Yu has a character define the world around him with so many labels that it made my head hurt trying to keep them straight. In another, the hero of the story is an actor who takes his role in a television sitcom too much to heart and can’t adapt when the cast and show begin to change.
Coming in at under two hundred pages, and with an author as talented as Charles Yu, this book should have been a sure bet for an end-of-the-summer weekend pick. But it’s too dark for me to recommend to anyone who’s not into pondering the meaning of everything in life. But at least it’s a very well crafted book.
