Wonder Woman: Warbringer (DC Icons #1)
Wonder Woman: Warbringer (DC Icons #1) by Leigh Bardugo
Blurb:
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.
Review:
"What's a supermodel?" Diana asked.
Nim stared at her.
"Uh, Diana's homeschooled," said Alia.
"Under a rock?" asked Nim.
Confession time: I'm not a particular fan of Wonder Woman. I don't have anything against her but I also just don't think she's that interesting. Maybe it's seeing images of her comic as a kid and thinking that she looked useless compared to all the awesome female warriors I had read about in fantasy books (and also compared to her male companions - a Lasso of Truth? how stupid that sounded to me especially because she didn't even appear to have any other weapons and meanwhile Batman is running around in an impressive dark suit being all conflicted about the world aka. being interesting). Maybe it's because of the Comics lecture I've just completed last semester (awesome lecture, btw) in which we studied the development of DC Comics and some aspects of Wonder Woman in particular which just didn't impress me at all (not that any comic publisher has a spotless track record - not at all). Maybe it's something else. My point is, I wouldn't have picked this book up if it hadn't been written by Leigh Bardugo. But, of course, Bardugo has managed to persuade me and made me see the awesomeness that can be produced with Wonder Woman (Yes, even that Lasso of Truth suddenly sounds like quite the weapon to me, I can't believe it either. Though I still prefer swords/daggers/bows/katanas/...).
That being said, I think this is solid Leigh Bardugo work but nothing particularly special. Without the constant twists and turns in the story I saw the eventual plottwists coming from miles away and the big reveal moment was dampened by a "huh, and here I thought this might be a stupid twist but apparently this is happening". The writing is solid but, again, nothing special (we are talking about Leigh Bardugo, though, thus even her "only solid" work it is automatically good). The characters are cool and very much carry the story (in my opinion), apart from one of them ("them" being the main crew) who I thought to be rather one-dimensional. Unfortunately, that one character is the villain, which is quite the let-down. (Oh, and the action is awesome, of course.)
But something that did impress me were the occasional moments of humor. Leigh Bardugo has proven herself to be great at satirical, dark humor but in this book there the humor is a lot more light-hearted than I expected. Come to think of it, the whole tone of the book is a lot more light-hearted than I had expected.
What I want to say is this: This is a solid story and it makes Wonder Woman look like a pretty cool character. But it's also not much more than a solid action-flick kind of book. Enjoyable, easy to read, but ultimately probably rather forgettable.
But something that did impress me were the occasional moments of humor. Leigh Bardugo has proven herself to be great at satirical, dark humor but in this book there the humor is a lot more light-hearted than I expected. Come to think of it, the whole tone of the book is a lot more light-hearted than I had expected.
What I want to say is this: This is a solid story and it makes Wonder Woman look like a pretty cool character. But it's also not much more than a solid action-flick kind of book. Enjoyable, easy to read, but ultimately probably rather forgettable.
Rating:
Maybe slightly unimpressed 4/5 stars.
Details:
Name: Wonder Woman: Warbringer
Deutscher Titel: Wonder Woman - Kriegerin der Amazonen
Series: DC Icons (Though I wont read this as a series. I'm not particularly interested in the other stories. I wouldn't even have read this one hadn't it been written bei Leigh Bardugo.)
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Publisher: Random House
Pages: 384
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