Review: Miles Morales

Title: Miles Morales
Author: Jason Reynolds
Genre: Young Adult
Publisher: Marvel
Source: Library
Release Date: August 1, 2017
Rating: ★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

“Everyone gets mad at hustlers, especially if you’re on the victim side of the hustle. And Miles knew hustling was in his veins.”

Miles Morales is just your average teenager. Dinner every Sunday with his parents, chilling out playing old-school video games with his best friend, Ganke, crushing on brainy, beautiful poet Alicia. He’s even got a scholarship spot at the prestigious Brooklyn Visions Academy. Oh yeah, and he’s Spider Man. But lately, Miles’s spidey-sense has been on the fritz. When a misunderstanding leads to his suspension from school, Miles begins to question his abilities. After all, his dad and uncle were Brooklyn jack-boys with criminal records. Maybe kids like Miles aren’t meant to be superheroes. Maybe Miles should take his dad’s advice and focus on saving himself. As Miles tries to get his school life back on track, he can’t shake the vivid nightmares that continue to haunt him. Nor can he avoid the relentless buzz of his spidey-sense every day in history class, amidst his teacher’s lectures on the historical “benefits” of slavery and the importance of the modern-day prison system. But after his scholarship is threatened, Miles uncovers a chilling plot, one that puts his friends, his neighborhood, and himself at risk. It’s time for Miles to suit up.

Review:

I love Jason Reynolds, and I think my expectations for this novel were too high. It wasn’t as good as I expected.

Jason Reynolds usually writes books about some kind of social and racial injustice. This theme wasn’t as prevalent in this book. There were some things that happened, such as Miles being treated unfairly by their racist teacher, but I hoped it would have been a larger theme in the book. It would have been a great way to tie Miles to the real world.

I didn’t like Spider-Man’s mission and enemies in this story. I won’t spoil the ending and tell you what happened, but the story could have been much more exciting. Some things were just silly and unnecessary, such as the presence of the cats. I didn’t understand the meaning of them.

I was also a little lost in the beginning, because I’ve never read a Miles Morales story before. I hoped there would be some introduction to him in the story. We do find out how he became Spider-Man, but I still had questions about his life. For example, why does he go to an expensive private school when his parents can’t afford it? They are struggling to pay their bills, and I don’t see any special reason that he attends that school. I wish things were explained better.

I was disappointed in this story, but fans of Miles Morales comics may like it better.

What to read next:

• Runaways by Christopher Golden

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• Batman: Nightwalker by Marie Lu

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Have you read Miles Morales? What did you think?

Author: jilljemmett

Jill lives in Toronto, Canada. She has studied English, Creative Writing, and Publishing. Jill is the creator and content producer of Jill’s Book Blog, where she has published a blog post every day for the last four years, including 5-7 book reviews a week. She can usually be found with her nose in a book. View all posts by jilljemmett