Actually Super

An 18-year-old travels to prove that there’s good in the world in this bittersweet, existential read from Alsaid (Before Takeoff). Isabel has just booked a plane ticket from Detroit to Tokyo, but she insists that she’s not heading out due to wanderlust. Instead, Isabel is trying to outrun “the growing, gnawing sense that the world was more evil than good,” a belief instilled by her acerbic grandmother and amplified by her father’s bigotry and fallout from the pandemic. She has only ever found solace in Actually Super, an online forum whose members believe that superhumans exist, living quietly among ordinary people. Spurred by member reports of rumored sightings of Supers, Isabel arrives in Tokyo seeking a man named Hatori, who “goes around different train stations in Tokyo saving people who need him.” Interspersed throughout Isabel’s urgent first-person-present narrative are third-person chapters, set a year after Isabel’s departure, that follow her two best friends as they arrive in Mexico to meet up with her. When she doesn’t show, the two retrace Isabel’s steps hoping to find her. Via sometimes lofty plotting, Alsaid meditatively ruminates on themes of community, connection, personhood, and what it means to be and do good, making for a sincere and thought-provoking tale. Isabel cues as white and Jewish. Ages 12–up. Agent: Peter Knapp, Park & Fine Literary. (Aug.)