Book Review: Dreadnought by April Daniels ✨🏙️⚡️
rating: 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕
(5/5)
After Dreadnought, the world’s greatest superhero, is killed in combat, closeted trans girl Danny Tozer inherits his powers and is transformed to have the body she’s always wanted to have. Now she has to deal with having superpowers and being an out trans woman, all the while hunting down the supervillain who murdered her predecessor.
This book was phenomenal, and I’m kind of at a loss for words to describe how much I liked it.
To start, I love the world of this book. This is such a classic superhero story. Daniels uses the conventions of the genre without making things feel like a parody and subverts tropes just enough to make the story distinct.
I also really love Dreadnought as a trans narrative. This book doesn’t shy away from transphobia. Between Danny’s parents, kids at her school, and other heroes she meets, we get a pretty broad and realistic representation of the types of abuse a young trans woman might face. There’s also so much trans joy in this book. It was really nice to see Danny come into herself, and it was cathartic to watch her realize that no one could take her transition away from her. This is the type of story that will give trans kids hope for the future.
I would recommend this book to literally everyone. In fact, I plan on recommending this book to literally everyone. But because that’s not helpful, I’ll be more specific and say I highly recommend this book to fans of Andrew Joseph White. Obviously, it’s very different from his work, genre-wise, but I think the themes are really similar. If you like Hell Followed with Us and The Spirit Bares It’s Teeth, I can definitely see you liking Dreadnought.
