Wonder Woman: Warbringer
If you were not living under a rock or-nope, that’s really the only excuse, then you were probably one of the single entities that contributed to the giant mass of people that went and saw Wonder Woman in theaters in 2017.
Now, I’m a fan as much as the next girl and It’s been really cool to see little girls and boys walking around wearing Wonder Woman t-shirts and backpacks and having a gorgeous female lead in a DC movie.
However, that being said, I just don’t like superheroes.
It is not my thing.
I cannot reiterate this enough. I do not know the difference between the DC and the Marvel universes and frankly I do not care. I realize this is a highly unpopular opinion and I’ve accepted that, and hopefully it doesn’t offend anyone and if it does, then I’m sorry.
I just simply have never cared about superheroes (except for Spiderman-I freaking love Spiderman for no undefinable reason. Especially the new movie. Tom Holland is such a cutie.)
Now, that being said, why on earth would I read Wonder Woman: Warbringer when I have as much interest in superheroes as I do in the stock market and politics? I will give you one good reason:
It’s written by Leigh Bardugo. Leigh Bardugo is unequivocally a queen of YA Literature. Her Grisha Universe and the Six of Crows Duology is truly a work of pure genius. Her books are creative, her characters are extremely memorable and diverse, and her worlds are thrilling and teeming with surprising and juicy plot points that leaves the reader with a watering mouth.
I was extremely fortunate to have seen Bardugo twice in the last two months, once in November at a tiny, gothic bookstore in Burbank, California where she featured in a panel with other authors being collected for a short story anthology and the second time in Los Angeles in early December. She even brought cookies the second time and cool stickers.
While I found myself waiting in line munching on one of her cookies it was brought to my attention that I was required to buy one of her books in order to get a number, get in line, and subsequently see Bardugo-which was the whole reason I was there.
And of course, the only book I did not already own was Wonder Woman: Warbringer so here we are. Now that I’ve fully explained my behavior and preemptively biased mindset, I’ll delve into the actual review.
Wonder Woman: Warbringer actually starts off quite slow. It takes a long time for the book to get chugging and for us as readers to get off the Amazon island Themyscira and back to New York-where we don’t stay for long. In particular YA fashion, the book is filled with action and blowing things up and a million things going wrong at every corner, just for the protagonist to pull through with a very thin win at the end.
The book switches perspectives every chapter between Alia Keralis-the Warbringer- and Diana-Amazon princess. At first I really enjoyed the perspective switch and found Alia and Diana’s interactions downright hilarious.
Conversations gone wrong due to Diana growing up on a, “severely cultish feminist island with weapons” and Alia being a “puny human” were written very well and made me laugh out loud at the gym and garner stares on various occasions.
However, the character building screeches to a halt somewhere around mid book as the group of characters try very very hard to reach Greece and are stymied at every turn of the page.
I understand that Bardugo is “borrowing” Diana and the concept of Wonder Woman, and the other characters were nice and cool I suppose, but I feel like they lacked the usual umph that Bardugo’s characters bring.
Maybe this is because Bardugo is very good at creating morally ambiguous characters who are more aligned with being antiheroes than being goody two-shoes. For this reason, Diana, as an inherently savior type figure, and Alia, the other savior type figure, strike me as quite bland.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the fact that Bardugo’s entire cast of main characters are all people of color is staggering and magnificent. Alia, Jason, and Theo are black, Nim is Indian, and Diana is an Amazon. Not only that, but Nim represents our LGBTQ+ readers out there and all of them have interesting quirks and personalities.
That being said, they weren’t as awesome as some of Bardugo’s other characters like The Wraith, Kaz, or Jesper from Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom. I simply didn’t like them as much. Probably because of the whole I-will-save-the-world-because-it’s-the-right-thing-to-do-mentality. Been there done that a thousand times, especially within YA. Yawn.
And characters aside, the story just seemed…long. It took them FOREVER to get to Greece and it just seemed very simple.
Step one: leave island.
Step Two: Get to Greece.
Of course a lot of things happen in between, but it was a very self-contained plot that I felt was a bit too restrictive.
Something I really enjoyed included Bardugo’s immense research on Gods, Greece, the Amazons, and Mythology. I learned a lot about Wonder Woman’s origins, goddesses of death, Helen of Troy, and even some sprinklings of biology and genetics. When the characters are in Greece it truly feels like you are there swimming in the waterfalls with them and traversing little country roads speckled with sheep in the tiny Fiat that Nim is horrendously driving.
The one thing that really made this book memorable however was the twist at the end. I will not say what it is, I will not give it away, and I will not say much more than it was absolutely amazing and as my students would say, I was “shook.” I didn’t see it coming at all. My mouth actually gaped and I think I might have screamed at one point-much to the terror of my roommate.
To have a book be able to react such emotions is an amazing thing and Bardugo pulls it off incredibly. Her books have always been chockfull of twists and turns but this was a colossus. It seemingly came out of left-field but made so much sense when I put all the pieces together.
So all-in-all not a bad read. I still can’t shake the fact that I don’t like superheroes and that Wonder Woman interests me as much as football does (which is none at all) but the characters, the surprise twist, and the inclusion of mythology and Gods makes it an enjoyable read.
Recommendation: If you saw Wonder Woman in theaters and have spiraled into an obsession brimming with golden lassos and lots of leather, then this book is the next natural stepping stone for you. However, if you have as much interest in superheroes as I do and would rather watch grass grow, sticking to Bardugo’s other books filled with magic and heists is definitely the preferred option.
Score: 6/10
