Review: Lois Lane: Fallout

Lois Lane: Fallout by Gwenda Bond
Grade: B+
Summary: Lois Lane is starting a new life in Metropolis. An Army brat, Lois has lived all over—and seen all kinds of things. (Some of them defy explanation, like the near-disaster she witnessed in Kansas in the middle of one night.) But now her family is putting down roots in the big city, and Lois is determined to fit in. Stay quiet. Fly straight. As soon as she steps into her new high school, though, she can see it won’t be that easy. A group known as the Warheads is making life miserable for another girl at school. They’re messing with her mind, somehow, via the high-tech immersive videogame they all play. Not cool. Armed with her wit and her new snazzy job as a reporter, Lois has her sights set on solving this mystery. But sometimes it’s all a bit much. Thank goodness for her maybe-more-than-a friend, a guy she knows only by his screenname, SmallvilleGuy. 

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: It's no secret that I'm a fan of superheroes, particularly female ones. I'm more of a Marvel person, but when I heard there was going to be a book about a teenage Lois Lane, I knew I had to read it. I loved the characterization in Fallout. Readers will get to know Lois well, along with several of the friends she makes at East Metropolis High - Anavi, Devin, Maddie, and James. The latter three work with Lois at a teen start-up paper run by The Daily Planet; it's called The Daily Scoop. Perry White asks Lois to join the team after he sees her stand up for another girl at East Metropolis on Lois's very first day. Lois is a girl who seems to constantly thirst for knowledge, the truth, and justice. She has reporter instincts, and she's very passionate about standing up for those who have been wronged. I would've liked a little more build for her relationship with her parents. It's easy to tell she doesn't get along with her dad very well, and her relationship starts to develop with her sister, Lucy, but I wanted more of the Lane family.
But what's really fun in Fallout are the references to Superman. As mentioned in the synopsis, she's been chatting online with a super secretive guy that she knows only as SmallvilleGuy. Readers will know this is Clark Kent, but Lois doesn't. There are a few Easter eggs to his identity that made me laugh, and I love where their friendship went in this book. There's hints of romance but since he's keeping a big secret from her and their relationship is strictly online, a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship can't really develop. 
The one thing that held me back from completely loving Fallout was the plot revolving around the gamers (which, admittedly, is most of the book). I'm not really into video games and extreme technology, so those parts threw me a bit. But I enjoyed how the plot formed The Daily Scoop writers into a team. 
Mild language and some violence are the worst of "the ugly."

The Verdict: Can't wait for more!

Buy: Read Between the Lynes  Barnes & Noble

Will I be adding this book to my library?: Already have.