HERO by Perry Moore

HERO by Perry Moore (UK, Canada) is a YA novel that made its debut at the end of August. Somehow I missed putting this one on my debut calendar. Thanks to the Swivet for reminding me of its existence! Here is the blurb:

Thom Creed is used to being on his own. Even as a high school basketball star, he has to keep his distance because of his father. Hal Creed had once been one of the greatest and most beloved superheroes of The League-until the Wilson Towers incident. After that Thom's mother disappeared and his proud father became an outcast.

The last thing in the world Thom would ever want is to disappoint his father. So Thom keeps two secrets from him: First is that he's gay. The second is that he has the power to heal people. Initially, Thom had trouble controlling his powers. But with trail and error he improves, until he gets so good that he catches the attention of the League and is asked to join. Even though he knows it would kill his dad, Thom can't resist. When he joins the League, he meets a motley crew of other heroes, including tough-talking Scarlett, who has the power of fire from growing up near a nuclear power plant; Typhoid Larry, who makes everyone sick by touching them, but is actually a really sweet guy; and wise Ruth, who has the power to see the future. Together these unlikely heroes become friends and begin to uncover a plot to kill the superheroes. Along the way, Thom falls in love, and discovers the difficult truth about his parents' past.

The author is the same Perry Moore who was the executive producer of the recent The Chronicles of Narnia movie. Wikipedia has an entry on him that is quite informative. This novel is getting a lot of attention from places like, oh the New York Times (registration/purchase required) and Newsweek. I found a lot of skimpy blog reviews that wanted to "reserve judgement", but there's a good one at a blog called the Ya Ya Yas ("all YA, all the time" - I loved that tagline because it was somewhat familiar :).