Review: Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo

Wonder Woman: Warbringer
(DC Icons #1)
by Leigh Bardugo
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Publication date: Aug. 29, 2017
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Rating:

She will become one of the world’s greatest heroes: WONDER WOMAN. But first she is Diana, Princess of the Amazons. And her fight is just beginning. . . .

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 mere mortal. Even worse, Alia Keralis is no ordinary girl and with this single brave act, Diana may have doomed the world.

Alia just wanted to escape her overprotective brother with a semester at sea. She doesn’t know she is being hunted. When a bomb detonates aboard her ship, Alia is rescued by a mysterious girl of extraordinary strength and forced to confront a horrible truth: Alia is a Warbringer—a direct descendant of the infamous Helen of Troy, fated to bring about an age of bloodshed and misery.

Together, Diana and Alia will face an army of enemies—mortal and divine—determined to either destroy or possess the Warbringer. If they have any hope of saving both their worlds, they will have to stand side by side against the tide of war.

 

 

We’ve all heard of Wonder Woman and I was really excited that there was a young adult novel coming out that featured Wonder Woman as the main character. Not only that, but it’s Diana as a teenager! The beginning held a lot of promise as we are with Diana as she makes the extremely difficult decision to save a young human female’s life and anger the Gods, or forfeit that human’s life and save her people from peril. Little does she know that the young girl she saved in the shipwreck is the warbringer.

While the story immediately grabbed my interest, I didn’t feel any connection to the extra characters the author brought in. I mean, Alia’s brother, Jason, is apparently the love interest (sort of) for Diana, but I don’t fully grasp the attraction there. Theo (Jason’s bff) just seems so blasé about everything and just goes with the flow. He’s always drinking and just shrugging things off. Nim seemed like she was there to be the snarky best friend. I just never felt a connection to them and I’m not overly sure why. I was really excited when the author brought them in because I knew it was going to make the story more interesting but I never fully embraced them for some reason.

While I may not have necessarily loved the extra characters, I did love that this book has quite a bit of mythology to it. Apparently, there are Gods and Goddesses that do not want to see the warbringer harmed. They want the war and destruction to happen. So they do all that they can to interfere with Diana’s plans to get Alia to the location that will free her from the curse. Between Alia’s warbringer power causing chaos around her, the Gods interfering, and some crazy militia group out to kill the warbringer, there was a lot happening.

Warbringer was a fun young adult look at Wonder Woman before she became a legend. I’m not overly familiar with her story so I can’t way whether or not this jives with her history, but it was entertaining all the same. It was great getting to see such an iconic character as a teenager and watching them as they try to discover who they are inside and follow their dreams.

 

Favorite quote…

 

“I am done being careful. I am done being quiet. Let them see me angry. Let them hear me wail at the top of my lungs.”

 

 

21 Thoughts on “Review: Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo

  1. I never knew this book existed. It is good you were still able to enjoy it despite not liking the secondary characters. Great review.

    • I didn’t either. I had seen that the publisher booth was going to hand out copies at Comic-Con during the day we were going. If it wasn’t for the insert I saw in the guide book about all the events, I probably would have totally missed it.

  2. I’m waiting for the hype to die down a bit before I pick this one up.

    For What It’s Worth

  3. I have seen this one in Amazon and always thought the cover looks fantastic. I haven’t watched the latest wonder woman movie yet but heard it was really good. And wonder woman as a teen? That sounds fantastic. Even with your concerns, I’m glad you were still able to enjoy this one Kristin 🙂

  4. I will just watch the movie one day 😉 Cos this sounds…dunno

    • lol Yeah… when I explained the book to the Mister he was like, “Isn’t that pretty much the movie but with a girl instead of a guy?” I haven’t seen the movie so I can’t say how closely it follows that plot but it did seem similar to the events I saw in the trailers.

  5. Cool. I will need to read this one some day. Haven’t seen the movie yet, but we all know the TV show of course. LOL 😉

  6. I’m a superhero fan, and definitely love Wonder Woman, even as far back as with Lynda Carter, but I don’t normally read about them in books, unless in comic books. I love the cover of this one, though, and it seems neat to write about her life as a teen. Happy Saturday! Hugs…RO

    • The cover for this is gorgeous and I really liked that the author tried to do a coming of age story for WW. I could see this being adapted into a graphic novel. It certainly had a good bit of action to it

  7. My first reaction was “OMG THERE’S A WW BOOK?!” Then I calmed down and read your review, lol. I’m not sure if I’d actually enjoy this but that cover is awesome.

    • LoL I had no idea there was a WW book coming out until I was at Comic-Con and saw that the publisher was hanging out the book that day. It was a good read and I’m sure given all the WW hype right now, your library will end up getting a copy in.

  8. I’m more of a Marvel gal (rather than DC), so I don’t think I would enjoy this. However, I am glad it was a fun read for you. 🙂

    • I love Marvel, too. I’m not overly familiar with the DC Universe other that the major players like Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. Now, a coming of age story involving Storm from X-Men would be amazing.

  9. Lovely review! There has been TONS of hype around that book in the blogging community and I think I’ll wait until it dies down a little bit to consider actually adding it to my TBR. IT sounds quite great though, glad to hear you found it entertaining! 🙂

    • I feel like with all the hype around Wonder Woman, libraries will be wanting to get a copy of this book for their shelves. I’d see about requesting they carry it, if they don’t already plan to get a copy in. 🙂

  10. Oh that sounds very cool. I haven’t seen the movie yet but I plan too. I didn’t realize there was a WW book but I like the idea.

    • I actually stumbled across the book while at Comic-Con. I had no idea it had even existed until them. I haven’t seen the movie either but as soon as it is released on Netflix, I will be all over it. LoL

  11. I didn’t even know a DC Icons series was happening and there’s two more to come, I’m honestly not that excited for this, WW the movie was so epic that I just know this one might even piss me off, plus the hype is real. I haven’t read anything by Bardugo though so idk bout her writing a YA DC book, so torn :/

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