What would the MCU films be like if they focused on the lives of Pepper Potts and Gwen Stacy instead of Tony Stark and Peter Parker? One might think those movies would not be as action-packed, but they could likely be just as suspenseful. Author Crystal Cestari presents her take on these points of view in her newly released Super Adjacent, which follows the lives of Claire and Bridgette, who happen to be the civilian significant-others of superheroes based in Chicago. 

Claire is an over-achieving high school senior and life-long fanatic of Warrior Nation, the agency that manages an exclusive group of superheroes. She spends all of her free time competing for the coveted summer internship with Warrior Nation. While in the process of securing her spot, she meets Joy aka Girl Power, the newest member of the team. But since each branch of Warrior Nation restricts its teams to four members, that means one superhero is leaving – and it happens to be Claire’s idol, Blue Streak. Nevertheless, Claire can’t help but develop feelings for Joy and they begin to date. 

On the other end of the superhero scale, Bridgette has been dating Matt aka Vaporizer for four years. A college transfer student working her butt off for a spot at her dream art school, she has her own ambitions to achieve her career goals. However, dating a superhero means that she is often susceptible to kidnappings and other near-death experiences – not to mention Matt missing important events in Bridgette’s life. Despite her love for Matt, she becomes fed-up and struggles with a tough decision: does she break up with Matt to live her own life and achieve her goals, or does she stay in her relationship with a superhero, compromising her safety? 

Eventually Claire and Bridgette cross paths and Bridgette recognizes that Claire is somewhat in need of a mentor to navigate the world of being a non-superhero counterpart. However, things become complicated when Joy, Matt, and the remaining members of Warrior Nation go missing. With the corporate executives at the agency being suspiciously secretive and refusing to call for help from other branches, Claire and Bridgette have no choice but to take matters into their own hands to trace everyone’s steps and hunt down clues to find the missing superheroes. 

Fans of Crystal Cestari’s Windy City Magic series will enjoy more of the same in Super Adjacent. This new book is a fun, light read that isn’t too dark – almost as if we saw the story from Violet Parr’s point of view in The Incredibles (or rather, from that of Tony Rydinger if Violet could freely practice her powers to protect civilians). True to Cestari’s tendency for inclusive storytelling, readers in the LGBTQ community will also appreciate the same-sex relationship highlighted in the book. 

Cestari also takes her writing style a step further in Super Adjacent by focusing on two main characters, with both storylines told in first-person. Since the book is meant for young adults, Cestari did a great job differentiating between the two and still offering an easy-to-read book. 

One complaint I’m seeing, however, is that the book is pretty slow-paced for the first two-thirds of the story – much of the action happening towards the end. While I somewhat agree with this opinion, I didn’t find the beginning or middle of the book slow or tiresome; Cestari spends necessary time building her world, allowing readers to get to know the protagonists, and setting up the twists we encounter at the end. 

Crystal Cestari was gracious enough to meet with me during C2E2 weekend to talk about her Windy City Magic series and newly released Super Adjacent. Interested readers can tune in to Episode 75 of The Nerd Cantina Show to listen to the interview.