“Walk A Mile” by P.K. Gardner

This is the sequel to Enemies Like These, a book I read a little while ago as part of the Great Ace Digital Book Box. I was in love with the first book, and the sequel is also incredible, and packs just as big of a punch.

This series follows Alex, a boy with superpowers. His alter ego is Good Guy, a flying, super strength wielding superhero. His best friend is Malcolm, aka Malevolence, a supervillain with super speed and who enjoys building killer robots. This installment in the series details how, somehow, Alex and Mal manage to switch bodies, with the help of a couple psychic supervillains looking to experiment.

Now of course, this is one heck of a trope to use. But Gardner is nothing if self-aware, she even details out in some dialogue that this can be an annoying trope, but maybe we just have not seen it done right yet. And to be honest, I think that this is the best iteration of the body-switching trope that I’ve seen. The narration details not only the different appearances of the characters, but the different ways that their minds work. Alex (within Mal’s body) suddenly finds himself a math whiz, and Mal (in Alex’s body) finds himself thinking more like a hero and with more restraint. But there’s a deadline they figure out for them to figure out how to get back to their own bodies, or end up stuck with the ones they’re with. Honestly the treatment of this storyline is so incredibly well done that it’s by far the highlight of the book.

Meanwhile, another superhero named Dodger is trying to restart The Superhero Project, a government research program to create superheroes. The trigger-happy hero X pledges to stop him, having escaped the original Superhero Project that destroyed his life. These two storylines collide, and end in tragedy.

I don’t want to give away the ending here, I’ll definitely spoil it when discussing the trilogy’s finale though. But needless to say, this book takes all your expectations and turns them on their heads. It’s a wild ride and incredibly enjoyable. The ending leaves you with Mal reinventing himself into, maybe not a hero, but probably not a villain either. I can’t wait to see how this series gets finished.