Proceed With Caution:
This book contains violence, blood, attempted murder, sexual assault, bigotry, slurs, and homophobia.
The Basics:
Mutant Pride is narrated by seventeen-year-old Dylan, a typical teenage girl with social anxiety...and one day she wakes up with the ability to talk to inanimate objects. Then at school she stumbles upon a girl whose face and body shifts based on her mood, and Dylan realizes that she's not alone. There must be more kids like her! Dylan and Alyse find the common thread of their abilities: they both kissed Emma Hall the night of her party. Why did that give them powers? Who else kissed Emma? What's with these random super-localized earthquakes?! Can Dylan finally form the X-Men group of her dreams?!
My Thoughts:
I went into Mutant Pride knowing absolutely nothing about it. I liked the cover, it appeared in my KU recommendations, and it seemed fun. I absolutely adored it! Dylan was such a great narrator. She is far from perfect, but that was perfect! And this book is hella queer! Like, every single character is queer, and it was fantastic! The superpowers are varied and fun but also have their drawbacks. The plot was fast-paced and engaging. I absolutely hated the villain. He is the worst scum and I couldn't wait to see him get what he deserved!
Mutant Pride starts with Dylan trying to track down everyone who possibly has superpowers now. This is new territory for her, and not just because she can suddenly hold conversations with her pillow, but because she struggles with some pretty severe social anxiety. Before this, she really only spoke to her parent and boyfriend, Lou. But Dylan is an X-Men fangirl and couldn't be more excited to be living her dream! Not that everything goes smoothly. She's constantly worrying that she's going to ruin everything and that she'll lose her new team.
I also really liked how gender and sexuality were handled here. Dylan immediately lets us know that she's still figuring things out, but that she's probably demisexual. Her boyfriend, Lou, is trans. Her parent is androgynous and gender nonconforming. The other girls with abilities are also into girls or are ace. In fact, this whole kissing business came about because Emma was trying to figure out if she likes anyone at all! It's not all sunshine and rainbows for our queer heroes. There is bullying and ignorant humans, of course. But they all stand up for each other, which was nice to see.
The plot is super superhero cliche. There's another person out there with superpowers who isn't on their side. He's using his newfound abilities for evil, so Dylan decides that everyone should team up to take him out! Needless to say, it doesn't go well at first. They're just a bunch of teens who don't know how to fight or control their powers. They have to regroup and figure out what to do next. I loved seeing them come into their powers and try again. I was definitely cheering them on! The final fight scene was quite a bit more brutal than I was expecting though.
In the end, Mutant Pride was so much fun! I hadn't read anything quite like this before but it was exactly what I wanted to read. It covers a lot of typical teen issues like first love, crushes, jealousy, and identity. All wrapped up in a super gay X-Men-esque package!