I'm going to recommend a novel series I bought on a whim: "All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault" by James Alan Gardner. The first of the Spark/Dark series.
It's a mix of urban fantasy and superheroes with a very, very distinctly Canadian influence (the heroes constantly debate whether they should be engaged in fisticuffs with the bad guys over just talking out their problems). The setting basically posits that all the urban fantasy monster came out of the closet some forty years ago and basically started offering immortality for cash, but not just any cash, ridiculously obscene levels of cash. So now all of the super wealthy are vampires and other assorted things-that-go-bump collectively called Darklings, and ONLY the super wealthy. And the universe corrects this imbalance because superheroes (called "Sparks" because the wealthy sued them when they tried to call themselves superheroes because that was trademarked) started to exist.
The dialogue is snappy, the characters are interesting and the plot has suitable twists that you can both see coming and still enjoy being a little surprised at. Also the main character is genderqueer/genderfluid in a very frank way. The whole thing basically reads like a roleplaying campaign (including people deadpan complaining about the plot railroad) but the kind of campaign we wish we had and not the actual one that happens at the table. Kind of an idealized gaming session.
It does get very meta, like extremely meta. The clash between Light and Dark is not a metaphor in the setting. It's a simile. If that doesn't float your boat, avoid. If, however, you like snarky geek girls versus The Man you'll probably like it.
It's a mix of urban fantasy and superheroes with a very, very distinctly Canadian influence (the heroes constantly debate whether they should be engaged in fisticuffs with the bad guys over just talking out their problems). The setting basically posits that all the urban fantasy monster came out of the closet some forty years ago and basically started offering immortality for cash, but not just any cash, ridiculously obscene levels of cash. So now all of the super wealthy are vampires and other assorted things-that-go-bump collectively called Darklings, and ONLY the super wealthy. And the universe corrects this imbalance because superheroes (called "Sparks" because the wealthy sued them when they tried to call themselves superheroes because that was trademarked) started to exist.
The dialogue is snappy, the characters are interesting and the plot has suitable twists that you can both see coming and still enjoy being a little surprised at. Also the main character is genderqueer/genderfluid in a very frank way. The whole thing basically reads like a roleplaying campaign (including people deadpan complaining about the plot railroad) but the kind of campaign we wish we had and not the actual one that happens at the table. Kind of an idealized gaming session.
It does get very meta, like extremely meta. The clash between Light and Dark is not a metaphor in the setting. It's a simile. If that doesn't float your boat, avoid. If, however, you like snarky geek girls versus The Man you'll probably like it.