A review of Stuntboy, In-between Time
by
Jason
Reynolds
Stuntboy by Jason Reynolds is the story of Portico and Zola and their new friend Herbert, who used to be their enemy.
In this iteration of Stuntboy, the trio finds themselves dealing with obstacles en route to their special place. When Portico’s parents divorced, he had to split time between his mother‘s place and his dad's apartment. Portico Reeves’s superpower is making sure all the other superheroes, like his parents and two best friends, stay super. And safe. And he does this all in secret. No one in his civilian life knows he’s actually…Stuntboy!
But his regular Portico identity is pretty cool, too. He lives in the biggest house on the block, in the whole city, which makes it a castle. His mom calls where they live an apartment building. But a building with fifty doors just in the hallways is a castle. And behind those fifty doors live a bunch of different people whom Stuntboy saves all the time. He’s the only reason the cat, New Name Every Day, has nine lives.
All this is swell except for Portico’s other secret, his not-so-super secret. And even though they think they're hiding it, he knows when they're going to fight. They try to hide it by telling him to go check on a neighbor "in the meantime." But Portico knows that "meantime" means they're about to get into it, and that's his other problem: figuring out how to save them.
--reviewed by Will