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    Hero Type
    Hero Type
    Hero Type
    Audiobook9 hours

    Hero Type

    Written by Barry Lyga

    Narrated by Jonathan Todd Ross

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Barry Lyga has received high praise from publications like Booklist, School Library Journal and Publishers Weekly. A frank novel combining realistic teenage dialogue and biting comedy, Hero-Type addresses many questions on the minds of contemporary teens. After rescuing a classmate, otherwise unremarkable Kevin Ross is hailed as a hero. But then he commits a shocking act that destroys his new popularity and threatens to reveal a dark secret. "... this neatly plotted look at what real patriotism and heroism mean will get readers thinking."-Kliatt
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateFeb 13, 2009
    ISBN9781440709548
    Author

    Barry Lyga

    Barry Lyga is a recovering comic book geek and the author of many books, including The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl, Goth Girl Rising, Boy Toy, and Hero-Type for HMH, Wolverine: Worst Day Ever for Marvel Books, and Archvillian for Scholastic. He has also written comic books about everything from sword-wielding nuns to alien revolutionaries. He worked as marketing manager at Diamond Comic Distributers for ten years. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.Visit Barry online at www.barrylyga.com.

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    Reviews for Hero Type

    3.5/5

    73 ratings7 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I love Barry Lyga as an author, he talks about things that people are too uncomfortable to talk about because they don't want to offend anyone. I would have absolutely loved the book, but one part of the book, threw me off and off from loving the book. The only reason why Kevin caught the serial killer is disgusting. And only on that one factor only is why this book only got 3 stars instead of 5. Other than that, the rest of the book was amazing!
    • 3/5
      After Kevin Ross saves Leah Muldoon from a serial killer known as The Surgeon everyone calls him a hero and wants a piece of him, the news media, the mayor, everybody. Kross, as he’s known by his friends in the Council of Fools, was on a national news program, the school had an assembly honoring him, and he received a $30,000 reward; and all because he happened to be at the library when Leah was attacked. He wonders what people would think if they knew the real reason he was in the right place at the right time. But he doesn’t dwell on that possibility. The mayor of Brookdale offers to sell Kross a cheap car from his dealership and the media makes an event out of it. The mayor places two ribbon magnets on the car supporting the troops and when Kevin’s father, who is a Gulf War veteran, asks him to remove them, someone from the school paper captures him throwing the ribbons in the garbage. The repercussions of this action drive the rest of the novel and raise questions for Kross about freedom of speech, supporting the troops. A whole new media circus begins and Kross wonders how he went from being the town’s hero to the town’s goat. He and the Council of Fools were always misfits but now Kross is virtually a pariah.
    • 2/5
      Kevin is a hero. He saved a popular girl, Leah, from getting raped and murdered, and if that wasn't good enough, the person he saved her from is a serial killer. So, Kevin went from a fool that tried to not really get noticed to the center of attention. In school, everyone wants to be his friend and sit next to him. He is even given a pretty good deal on a car from the mayor of the town, who also owns the car dealership. Only, Kevin doesn't feel like a hero. Actually, he is keeping a secret that makes him feel worse every time his heroism is brought up. To make matters worse, a local reporter catches him throwing away two magnetic patriotic ribbons off of the back of his car when Kevin's father tells him to. This reporter turns Kevin into a villain. Kevin is all of a sudden everyone's enemy because they believe that he is not patriotic. Instead of coming clean and just saying that his dad made him do it, Kevin takes hold of this new image and brings about a debate about free speech. Not only does Kevin have to deal with this new villain treatment, but he also has to deal with the secret that he is keeping, and his mom wants him to move to California away from his dad.I usually like Barry Lyga, but I just did not get into this book. There were too many issues that were happening at one time and I don't believe that any of them were written well enough for me to grip onto and struggle through with the main character. Lyga may have shared what was going on, but it was not done in a way that I cared about. I think part of the problem is that I just never really cared about Kevin. I could relate to him from time to time, but he wasn't a character that I liked. The challenges that Kevin goes through in order to find his identity and what is important to him are not gripping. The secret that he struggles with is easy to figure out within a few pages of the story and it probably turns me off to the character as a whole. All in all, I really think that Lyga was trying to do too much with this novel and because of that he barely scratches the surface of each topic making this book shallow and not worth the extended amount of time it took me to read it.I gave it a 2/5 stars. I finished it and it was written by a great author, but I don't recommend it and I would not read it again.
    • 3/5
      Kevin Cross is a hero because he saves a girl from almost certain death at the hands of a serial killer, but he doesn't feel like one because he was up to nefarious intent at the time. In the wake of the attention he gets for saving the girl, Leah, he gets negative attention for a number of other actions. And it may in the end be these other less popular actions that really earn him the title of hero.
    • 4/5
      I don't even remember why I picked this book up, except it looked intriguing, and boy was it. It's the story of Kevin. He's the town hero, he saved Leah's life, but he's also harboring a secret. That may sound a little like a cop out, but you don't know what the secret is until almost halfway through the novel. And, to be perfectly honest, I think it works just fine. What makes this book good, aside from the rather complex plot, is the fact that Lyga portrays Kevin exactly as he is -- a reluctant hero so caught up in his own shortcomings (those that his friends and family overlook) that he ends up mixed up in more than just the fame of being a hero. Kevin doesn't believe he's a hero and when we find out why, we can't help but feeling sorry for him. Lyga has Kevin redeem himself in one of the most unlikely ways, turning the book from an excellent coming of age story, into a novel that's both about coming of age but what it means to grow up and to fight for what you believe in. Maybe Kevin's a hero, maybe it's not. But, in the end, it doesn't matter.
    • 4/5
      Kevin' doesn't think he's much of a hero. The whole town considers him one, though, since he saved a girl from his school from being kidnapped by "The Surgeon," a brutal serial killer and rapist. Sometimes the attention is nice, since his dad barely pays attention to him at home and it's not like he's the most popular guy or the handsomest guy in school - he's far from it. Kevin told everyone that he was just at the right place at the right time, which, in a way he was. But the truth is there is more to that night, and the secret reason that he was there to save the girl - Leah, the unwitting object of his affection - is less than honorable, perhaps even perverse. So when the town stops worshiping Kevin and starts treating him like the villain he really is, it wouldn't bother him so much, except that they still don't know his secret. They're up in arms over the "Support the Troops" magnets that he refuses to put on his car. And it's not even that Kevin doesn't support th troops - he just believes in free speech, and he doesn't think that putting magnets on your car does very much for the soldiers fighting overseas. So Kevin starts a debate, one he is sure to lose. Meanwhile his friends, the self-appointed "Council of Fools" are pulling some politically-inspired pranks all over town. But when the local paper starts publishing less than flattering stories about Kevin's dad, and the Council starts to lose perspective, Kevin sees that proving his point about free speech is more important than he could have imagined. And so is confronting the ugly truth about the night that he saved Leah.Lyga's presentation of some very relevant issues is engaging and fast-paced. The character of Kevin, despite all of his flaws (the darker of which come to light over the course of the novel) is sympathetic and his problems aren't unlike those of most teenagers - he isn't in with the in crowd, his self-image is terrible, and he has trouble at home. As Kevin narrates the story, while sometimes the reader is acknowledged in a way that nearly pulls him away from the fiction at hand, it is done with a skillful conversational tone that is easy to fall into. Hero-Type is an important book, one that should be considered for high school libraries across the country.
    • 5/5
      Kevin Ross (Kross to his friends) is a genuine hero. Outside the library one day, Kross was able to rescue a girl named Beth from a serial killer, wrestling the serial killer to the ground. He is given the key to the city, reporters are following him everywhere, and he even gets a great discount on a car from the Mayor (who also runs a car lot).The car is where the problems really start. The mayor throws in a couple of “Support the Troops” ribbons, and Kross' dad, who served in the military and hates the ribbons, forces Kross to remove them. The act is witnessed by a reporter, and suddenly the headlines saying “Local Teen is a Hero” change to “Why Does Kevin Ross Hate America?”Kross actually hadn't thought much about patriotism or what it means to “support the troops” or “love your country,” but self-defense (and a desire to prove his greatest rival wrong) drive him to the Internet and library to learn more. He is also still trying to understand his actions the day he rescued Beth, and everything that preceded and followed that fateful day.As always, Barry Lyga's strength is in his characters. Kross isn't always likeable – many of his actions are creepy at best, and illegal at worst – but he felt real. He struggles with his guilt, with his anger, and his desire to “do something” - even when he doesn't know what that “something” is. The secondary characters are also well-drawn, especially Kross's father and his friends Tits and Fam.There are a lot of issues in this book – what patriotism really means, living with guilt, dealing with the fallout of divorce, obsession...the list could go on an on. What is remarkable to me is that the book never dissolves into preachiness. There are no easy answers to the questions raised, and the book doesn't insult the reader's intelligence by attempting to provide neat answers.