Hero: My First 1 Star Rating || Book Review / Ulasan Buku

Hero

Author: Zakri Rahman

Publisher: Buku Fixi

Released: April 27th, 2018

Genre: Fiction, Thriller

Pages: 288

Format: E-book

Characters: Hadi, Ray, Gel, Stone, Supertaklut, …

English

Hero follows the main character, Hadi on his journey to become a true superhero. He entered a reality show to compete as a contestant in One Superhero Academy. Will he be able to get his crush to like him after becoming a superhero? Will his hatred towards his father subsided? How will his journey affect his life and also his best friend, Ray?

Malay

Hanya tiga perkara yang berlegar dalam hidup Hadi: Kebencian pada bapanya iaitu seorang bekas superhero; persahabatan dengan kawannya Ray; dan cintanya yang tak berbalas pada Aisya, rakan sekuliahnya.

Hadi ingin menjadi superhero setelah mengetahui yang Aisya meminati superhero. Setelah insiden di tempat kerja part-timenya dan insiden menyelamatkan Aisya dari diragut, cita-cita Hadi untuk menjadi superhero semakin menebal, tetapi bukan seperti bapanya.

Pencarian superhero baru negara pun bermula dan Hadi mendaftar sebagai peserta di Akademi Satu Superhero. Pemilihan superhero adalah berdasarkan program realiti TV. Di situ, Ray berkenalan dengan rakan dan lawan seperti Gel, Stone, Chick dan Aziz Hamidun. Siapa yang akan muncul juara? 

Source: Goodreads

First of all, I’d like to thank Buku Fixi for providing readers 6 of their titles for free in e-book format. HERE are the 6 free e-books. I think that’s very kind of them despite the bad economic situation at the moment, especially during the MCO and Covid-19. So, I snatched this chance and downloaded all the 6 titles and I was drawn to Hero first. The cover is really pretty and I don’t know much about any of the books but Hero kinda stood out for me.

Going into a book blindly and having no expectation or whatsoever is always a 50/50 bet. It’s either you’re going to like it or totally hate it or maybe feeling like “Ah, it was okay…”. 50 pages into Hero, it wasn’t a great ride. I knew this book was going to be disastrous for me but I was determined to finish this story. It did cause a major headache after reading it. All I could think was:

Let’s talk about the positive aspects of this book. I like the writing style and the language used is mostly very appropriate and different from most Fixi titles. I applaud the author for that. Also, the main issues that are highlighted are corruption and media play on reality shows. I think that was nicely done. Lastly, there was plot development but the climax was not even that great and the plot twist wasn’t surprising. Hence, it didn’t add on anything. That’s basically it. Now let’s move on to the actual tea.

So many things went south for this book. This review is going to be full with spoilers. If you don’t mind spoilers, go ahead and enjoy yourself.

1. The protagonist is so indecisive, contradicting and ridiculous. Hadi wanted to become a superhero because of a girl and for money, that was made quite clear at first. Then, he went to meet the father and all of a sudden, he wanted to become a better superhero than his father and I started to question what’s his actual motive? Even he questioned himself in the middle of the story. Also, he likes his crush but hated everything about his crush except her look, I’m just lost for words. I was confused af most of the time.

2. The author always invited the readers to talk about logic. I came across some parts where the author discussed about women and how strong is women’s influence in big decisions, etc. But then, he was describing it in very negative way as if women’s empowerment is dangerous and doesn’t bring any good outcome. This is my interpretation, so the author might not mean it that way. Because at the end of the day, the author really liked to invite readers to discuss about logic. To be honest though, at some point, it was getting wayyyy ridiculous.

3. Execution of the concept or idea. I can see the idea is there in Hero but the execution part is really weak. For instance, the process of choosing a superhero. Was it the same back then with the present? The reality show with the fights taking place in the Arena was not really great. The idea is taken from The Hunger Games but the depiction of the whole situation during the fights was so poor. It was frustrating to be honest. However, I must say there are some parts that the author did think thoroughly, which was the acronyms of the academy and the name of the hall, etc. They were funny at first but then it was overused and the acronyms were not funny anymore.

4. Plot holes and lack of explanation on many events. One of the biggest headache of mine about Hero is this aspect. A lot of things were not explained properly. This book consists a lot of explaining but when it comes to key events that were mentioned repeatedly, the author failed to do so. For instance, the mother’s death. What happened? Were they attacked? By whom? How did things go south between the father and the protagonist? All that was given is the father failed to protect his mother because the father was trying to protect him but he misunderstood his father and hence caused the tension between the father and son for 7 years. (That’s a freaking long sentence btw) I just didn’t understand. Also, at the ending, the friend Superstone was totally forgotten, I was like: pity that boy. Did he remain as a stone still? I wanted to know more about him.

5. Choppy or lack of coherence. The author jumped from one part to another part without linking them. At one second, the protagonist was talking about the father and the next moment, about his crush. I didn’t even get the impact on the whole daddy issue yet and suddenly I was served with the crush issue. It felt so amateur at some point, as if the author didn’t know what he was doing.

6. Lack of research and simply throwing in a disability. I think many readers wouldn’t care about this because it’s not the main point of this book. However, when an author decided to include a disability in his or her book, they need to at least address the disability and give decent explanation to the readers, instead of just mentioning a random fan of the protagonist has Cerebral Palsy in one sentence. He did not further discuss what is Cerebral Palsy or at least give some description. None of that was given. The author talked about gay club and it was like a page long that simply says “Oh, gays is not right.” and the protagonist didn’t like the idea of two men get together. I’m like whut? I got his point but he could at least describe what’s in the club, who are in it and what’s the situation.

Overall, this book is not for me. I had lots of issues with it and in my opinion, it’s not recommended at all. But, of course, this is just my humble opinion, you could still go for it or disagree with me if you’ve read the book. We’re all entitled of our own opinions.

I would normally continue local books review with a Malay version or translation but I don’t think I have the energy for this one. The English review is sufficient enough to deliver my thoughts on Hero. I hope you like it and I’m out, fam!