Brooding YA Hero Review

This week's book is Brooding YA Hero: Becoming a Main Character (Almost) as Awesome as Me, by Carrie Ann DiRisio.

This is the book version of the Brooding YA Hero twitter account.  Broody, the brooding YA hero, sets out to write a how-to book to explain how supporting characters can become main characters.  These how-to sections are interspersed with narrative interludes where his evil ex-girlfriend, Blondie, drags him around to meet various supporting characters in an attempt to get him to show some empathy.

A lot of what Broody says is repetitive, but that's the joke.  He also never answers the question or gives any actionable advice on how to become a main character, but this is directly addressed and is also kind of the point: he has no idea what he's talking about.

There is some pretty good stuff in here about how toxic the typical brooding YA hero is, how "not like other girls" is problematic, and how female characters who are assertive and know how to wear makeup are always antagonists.  IT doesn't go very deep, but it's based on a twitter account.