The Psychology of Superheroes by Dr. Robin S. Rosenberg has really enlightened me and changed the way I see superheroes because it goes in depth about certain aspects regarding superheroes like how they balance their crime-solving lives with their personal lives and how they deal with stress. This book also involves two topics that interest me: psychology and superheroes. In fact, it has optimized my interest in psychology since it talks about positive psychology in certain essays like “The Positive Psychology of Superheroes” and “Positive Psychology of Peter Parker”. “The Positive Psychology of Superheroes” analyzes superheroes to determine if they live a fulfilled life, which includes achieving a state of happiness and having various relationships with others, and what makes superheroes so super. To go more in depth on this particular essay, they talk about how superheroes live a happy life of fighting criminals even though they never have time to relax and enjoy life by “smell[ing] the roses”(Peterson and Park 8) as there’s always a crime to solve, the traits that strengthen superheroes and make them fascinating to audiences as well as models of good character, and how their lack of personal relationships can negatively affect their lives and make them less fulfilled. Next, “Positive Psychology of Peter Parker” discusses the origin of Spiderman and how his miraculous powers obtained by a spider’s venom have positively affected his life. It explains how Peter Parker went from being a shy, antisocial student to being a outgoing, friendly crime-fighter since “Spiderman is his ideal self because the webslinger is so capable”(Biswas-Diener 68), which gives him higher self-esteem and also grants him the desire to use his powers for the greater good, his use of humor that allows him to make light out of dark situations, and his hope that grants him the ability to wake up everyday and be the superhero that he is. Another essay that really caught my attention was “The Stereotypical (Wonder) Woman” by Dr. Chuck Tate. This essay interested me as it talks about how Wonder Woman came about from an all-woman society and the stereotypes associated with her. It specifically examines how the creator of Wonder Woman, Moulton Marston or “Charles Moulton”, challenged feminine stereotypes of the 1940’s by creating a female superhero who is strong even though women in this era were weak and submissive, using the “social structure theory” to “explain differences (and similarities) between men and women in any society”(Tate 148) as these genders are formed by the societies they grow in, so in some societies, women are seen as loving, emotional, and feeble while men are seen as strong and dominant while in others, like in Wonder Woman’s homeland of Themyscira, women are the dominant gender and this essay also talks about the stereotypes associated with Wonder Woman’s clothing and style as different authors took over her comics so some authors would make Wonder Woman costumes show more skin and be more strong and feminine, for example, authors in the 1990’s and beyond, while others made her look more conservative, so authors in the 1940’s to 1990’s. The things that I learned from this book, like positive psychology of superheroes and the psychology involved in gender stereotypes, could be applied to my life as I could use it to learn how I could live a fulfilled life full of happiness as well as how our society shapes gender stereotypes. Lastly, I would recommend this book to a friend who is interested in the psychology of superheroes so they can gain more insight into this topic and become as fascinated as I am with psychology and I would recommend it to be used in the future as a summer reading assignment so other students could become interested in psychology by combining it with a topic that is more familiar and fun, like superheroes. In conclusion, this book was full of compelling insights into the psychology of superheroes that have enhanced my love for psychology.