Book picks similar to
The Second Super by Logan Rutherford


superhero
fantasy
superheroes
science-fiction

Everlost


Neal Shusterman - 2006
     ...but their souls don't exactly get where they're supposed to get either. Instead, they're caught halfway between life and death, in a sort of limbo known as Everlost: a shadow of the living world, filled with all the things and places that no longer exist. It's a magical, yet dangerous place where bands of lost children run wild and anyone who stands in the same place too long sinks to the center of the Earth. When they find Mary, the self-proclaimed queen of lost kids, Nick feels like he he's found a home, but Allie isn't satisfied spending eternity between worlds. Against all warnings, Allie begins learning the "Criminal Art" of haunting, and ventures into dangerous territory, where a monster called the McGill threatens all the souls of Everlost. In this imaginative novel, Neal Shusterman explores questions of life, death, and what just might lie in between.

The Monstrumologist


Rick Yancey - 2009
    This is the trust I never betrayed. But he is dead now and has been for more than forty years, the one who gave me his trust, the one for whom I kept these secrets. The one who saved me . . . and the one who cursed me.So starts the diary of Will Henry, orphaned assistant to Dr. Pellinore Warthorpe, a man with a most unusual specialty: monstrumology, the study of monsters. In his time with the doctor, Will has met many a mysterious late-night visitor, and seen things he never imagined were real. But when a grave robber comes calling in the middle of the night with a gruesome find, he brings with him their most deadly case yet.A gothic tour de force that explores the darkest heart of man and monster and asks the question: When does man become the very thing he hunts?

Unearthed


Amie Kaufman - 2017
    The Undying's advanced technology has the potential to undo environmental damage and turn lives around, and Gaia, their former home planet, is a treasure trove waiting to be uncovered.For Jules Addison and his fellow scholars, the discovery of an alien culture offers unprecedented opportunity for study... as long as scavengers like Amelia Radcliffe don't loot everything first. Mia and Jules' different reasons for smuggling themselves onto Gaia put them immediately at odds, but after escaping a dangerous confrontation with other scavvers, they form a fragile alliance.In order to penetrate the Undying temple and reach the tech and information hidden within, the two must decode the ancient race's secrets and survive their traps. But the more they learn about the Undying, the more their presence in the temple seems to be part of a grand design that could spell the end of the human race...

The Park Service


Ryan Winfield - 2012
    That's what fifteen-year-old Aubrey VanHouten learns when he stumbles onto a post-apocalyptic paradise where the few remaining humans live on the run from deadly drones controlled by a mysterious Park Service. Torn between loyalty to his new best friend and trusting the girl of his dreams, Aubrey must learn to survive in a world he never dreamed existed while searching for answers to why everything he was taught is a lie. Beautifully written with challenging moral dilemmas and heart-melting friendships, The Park Service trilogy is an epic coming-of-age-story that will inspire and delight readers young and old.

Playing for Keeps


Mur Lafferty - 2008
    The First Wave heroes are jerks, but they have the best gifts: flight, super strength, telepathy, genius, fire. The Third Wavers are stuck with the leftovers: the ability to instantly make someone sober, the power to smell the past, the grace to carry a tray and never drop its contents, the power to produce high-powered excrement blasts, absolute control...over elevators. Bar owner Keepsie Branson is a Third Waver with a power that prevents anything in her possession from being stolen. Keepsie and her friends just aren't powerful enough to make a difference. at least that's what they've always been told. But when the villain Doodad slips Keepsie a mysterious metal sphere, the Third Wavers become caught in the middle of a battle between the egotistical heroes and the manipulative villains. As Seventh City begins to melt down, it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad, and even harder to tell who may become the true heroes.

Lockdown


Alexander Gordon Smith - 2009
    Convicted of a murder he didn’t commit, sentenced to life without parole, “new fish” Alex Sawyer knows he has two choices: find a way out, or resign himself to a death behind bars, in the darkness at the bottom of the world. Except in Furnace, death is the least of his worries. Soon Alex discovers that the prison is a place of pure evil, where inhuman creatures in gas masks stalk the corridors at night, where giants in black suits drag screaming inmates into the shadows, where deformed beasts can be heard howling from the blood-drenched tunnels below. And behind everything is the mysterious, all-powerful warden, a man as cruel and dangerous as the devil himself, whose unthinkable acts have consequences that stretch far beyond the walls of the prison. Together with a bunch of inmates—some innocent kids who have been framed, others cold-blooded killers—Alex plans an escape. But as he starts to uncover the truth about Furnace’s deeper, darker purpose, Alex’s actions grow ever more dangerous, and he must risk everything to expose this nightmare that’s hidden from the eyes of the world.

Sidekicks


Arthur Mayor - 2019
    Paper or plastic, cake or pie, tackle my chem homework or give a supervillain a well-deserved smackdown? (The answer’s obvious: cake.) When the leader of the world’s most powerful superhero team asked me to become Raven, his apprentice, that was the easiest choice ever. But I blew it. Now, all the superheroes are dead, killed in an instant by an enemy they never saw coming. And I have another choice: give up and hide inside my normal life or master my powers and assemble a team of fellow trainees to protect the city. If you enjoy action-packed good versus evil battles, snarky banter, and plucky teenage superheroes who refuse to quit, you will love Raven’s adventures in Sidekicks, the first book of Superpower Chronicles. Perfect for fans of Spider-Man and The Teen Titans. Get your copy today! Superpower Chronicles SIDEKICKS (Book 1) HEROES (Book 2) VIGILANTES (Available October 11, 2019) VILLAINS (Available November 8, 2019) ASSASSINS (Available 2020)

Wonder Woman: Warbringer


Leigh Bardugo - 2017
    Princess Diana longs to prove herself to her legendary warrior sisters. But when the opportunity finally comes, she throws away her chance at glory and breaks Amazon law—risking exile—to save a mortal. Diana will soon learn that she has rescued no ordinary girl, and that with this single brave act, she may have doomed the world.Daughter of death. Alia Keralis just wanted to escape her overprotective brother with a semester at sea. She doesn’t know she is being hunted by people who think her very existence could spark a world war. When a bomb detonates aboard her ship, Alia is rescued by a mysterious girl of extraordinary strength and forced to confront a horrible truth: Alia is a Warbringer—a direct descendant of the infamous Helen of Troy, fated to bring about an age of bloodshed and misery.Together. Two girls will face an army of enemies—mortal and divine—determined to either destroy or possess the Warbringer. Tested beyond the bounds of their abilities, Diana and Alia must find a way to unleash hidden strengths and forge an unlikely alliance. Because if they have any hope of saving both their worlds, they will have to stand side by side against the tide of war.

Touch


Jus Accardo - 2011
    He wears her shoes in the shower, is overly fascinated with things like DVDs and vases, and acts like she’ll turn to dust if he touches her. It’s not until Dez’s father shows up, wielding a gun and knowing more about Kale than he should, that Dez realizes there’s more to this boy—and her father’s “law firm”—than she realized.Kale has been a prisoner of Denazen Corporation—an organization devoted to collecting “special” kids known as Sixes and using them as weapons—his entire life. And, oh yeah, his touch? It kills. The two team up with a group of rogue Sixes hellbent on taking down Denazen before they’re caught and her father discovers the biggest secret of all. A secret Dez has spent her life keeping safe.A secret Kale will kill to protect.

Virals


Kathy Reichs - 2010
    When the group rescues a dog caged for medical testing on a nearby island, they are exposed to an experimental strain of canine parvovirus that changes their lives forever.As the friends discover their heightened senses and animal-quick reflexes, they must combine their scientific curiosity with their newfound physical gifts to solve a cold-case murder that has suddenly become very hot if they can stay alive long enough to catch the killer's scent.Fortunately, they are now more than friends. They're a pack. They are Virals.

The Zodiac Legacy: Convergence


Stan Lee - 2015
    He'll have to master strange powers, outrun super-powered mercenaries, and unlock the mysterious powers of the Zodiac.

Don't Turn Around


Michelle Gagnon - 2012
    Now living off the grid and trusting no one, she uses her hacking skills to stay anonymous and alone. But when she wakes up on a table in a warehouse with an IV in her arm and no memory of how she got there, Noa starts to wish she had someone on her side.Enter Peter Gregory. A rich kid and the leader of a hacker alliance, Peter needs people with Noa’s talents on his team. Especially after a shady corporation threatens his life in no uncertain terms. But what Noa and Peter don’t realize is that Noa holds the key to a terrible secret, and there are those who’d stop at nothing to silence her for good.

The Well's End


Seth Fishman - 2014
    Sixteen-year-old Mia Kish has always been afraid of the dark. After all, she’s baby Mia, the one who fell down a well. That was years ago, though the darkness still haunts her. But when her classmates and teachers at ritzy Westbrook Academy start dying of old age from a bizarre and frightening virus that ages its victims years in a matter of hours, Mia becomes haunted by a lot more than the dark. Their deaths are gruesome and Mia worries she and her friends may be next. In order to survive, Mia and her small crew must break quarantine and outrun armed soldiers in hazmat suits who shoot first and ask questions later.And there’s only one place to go—the Cave, aka Fenton Electronics. Mia knows it’s somehow connected and hopes her dad, Director of Fenton Electronics, who has always been strangely secretive about his work, has the answers she needs, and more importantly a cure to save everyone before the whole town succumbs to the mysterious virus. Unfortunately, it’s not answers Mia discovers, but something far more treacherous and impossible than even the virus itself. A high-stakes, fast-paced adventure with imagination and heart.

ULTRA


Matt Blake - 2016
    Wuss. Superhero... They were supposed to be the perfect creation: super-powered humans with extraordinary abilities, designed to keep the planet safe in dangerous times. Heroes.But too many of those creations went rogue. The Heroes were branded ULTRAs by the government, hunted down. Civil wars erupted. In the end, the ULTRAs were wiped from existence, consigned to the history books.Until now...Kyle Peters is a teenager going nowhere. He's a geek, he's awful at sports, and he doesn't have the courage to tell the girl of his dreams how he feels. His life is at a standstill, and it doesn't look like changing any time soon.But when Kyle is caught up in a terrifying hostage situation at a soccer stadium, he discovers he is capable of amazing things: he has the abilities of an ULTRA.Now, with a rival ULTRA devastating the planet, and the government keen to wipe all ULTRAs from existence once more, Kyle must battle his own fears and master his powers if he is to become what the world needs more than anything: a true Hero.But Kyle fast learns that becoming a Hero is way more difficult than it seems in the stories...ULTRA: The Last Hero is a gripping, fast-paced superhero/urban fantasy story, and the first in a series. With loveable characters, nail-biting action and adventure, and thrilling twists and turns, ULTRA is sure to delight all fans of the genre.

The Vindico


Wesley King - 2012
    Realizing they’re not as young as they used to be, they devise a plan to kidnap a group of teenagers to take over for them when they retire—after all, how hard can it be to teach a bunch of angsty teens to be evil?Held captive in a remote mansion, five teens train with their mentors and receive superpowers beyond their wildest dreams. Struggling to uncover the motives of the Vindico, the teens have to trust each other to plot their escape. But they quickly learn that the differences between good and evil are not as black and white as they seem, and they are left wondering whose side they should be fighting on after all . . .With fast-paced action, punchy dialogue, and sarcastic humor, this high-stakes adventure from a talented new YA voice pulls you in from the first page.