Batman: Nightwalker (DC Icons, #2) by Marie Lu
Genres: Mystery (YA), Comics
Pages: 272
Goodreads
Before he was Batman, he was Bruce Wayne. A reckless boy willing to break the rules for a girl who may be his worst enemy.
The Nightwalkers are terrorizing Gotham City, and Bruce Wayne is next on their list.
One by one, the city's elites are being executed as their mansions' security systems turn against them, trapping them like prey. Meanwhile, Bruce is turning eighteen and about to inherit his family's fortune, not to mention the keys to Wayne Enterprises and all the tech gadgetry his heart could ever desire. But after a run-in with the police, he's forced to do community service at Arkham Asylum, the infamous prison that holds the city's most brutal criminals.
Madeleine Wallace is a brilliant killer . . . and Bruce's only hope.
In Arkham, Bruce meets Madeleine, a brilliant girl with ties to the Nightwalkers. What is she hiding? And why will she speak only to Bruce? Madeleine is the mystery Bruce must unravel. But is he getting her to divulge her secrets, or is he feeding her the information she needs to bring Gotham City to its knees? Bruce will walk the dark line between trust and betrayal as the Nightwalkers circle closer.
*Disclaimer: I did not read Wonder Woman Warbringer before this one so don’t spoil anything for that one >.<
This book was just okay. I didn’t hate it, I didn’t love it – which was so disappointing because I love Marie Lu (especially The Young Elites).
First off, all the characters felt very surface level and one-dimensional. There wasn’t much there to make you care about anyone – not even Bruce. There were attempts at making Bruce feel more human in several chapters but they just weren’t executed well. Those sections ultimately felt pointless to the rest of the book.
There was a promising character that I adored in the beginning. I was looking forward to seeing what Lu did with this person, but again, it was lackluster. The “big reveal” was incredibly obvious and this character that was once such an independently awesome one, went to being another generic YA character. In fact, everyone was just a big YA cliché.
I think a lot of this has to do with the length of the book. This book is under 300 pages and the chapters themselves are incredibly short. While I don’t think this book could have stood as a much longer book, even just a bit more pages of character development would have greatly improved my enjoyment.
Speaking of character development, if you don’t know anything about Batman, this might not be for you. The book does not go into detail about Bruce’s past. His parents and being trapped as a child are briefly mentioned but nothing significant enough to actually give you the details. So, if you don’t know what the heck they’re talking about, I don’t know how much you’d enjoy Bruce’s character (I did know and still didn’t enjoy his character).
I will give some credit to this book, though – I enjoyed the cameos (which again rely on some knowledge of Batman). James Gordon, Lucius Fox, Harvey Dent, and of course, Alfred are all in this book and I did enjoy that.
Otherwise, this book, while it kept me reading, just wasn’t something I was looking forward to reading each day…
Have you read this? Thoughts?
Are you looking forward to Maas’ Catwoman?
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| Overall: | 2 / 5 |
7 Comments
I heard a lot of comments on how cliche the book is, but I’m still dissapointed to hear that the character felt one-dimensional. Bruce Wayne is one of the most interesting character in DC, I’m sad to hear him reduced to a YA cliche 🙁
Yea, I would agree with that. I haven’t read the other DC Icons books but now I’m a bit nervous to.
I guess there’s a fine line between writing for those who don’t know the character, and those who do. From your review, it sounds like this is falling for the problems faced by a lot of comic-book novelisations – the authors just don’t really know what to do with them!
That is very true! It did feel like Lu just didn’t know what to do with it.
I’ve read both this and the Wonder Woman book. I can tell you that I agree with you very much about this one, and that the Wonder Woman is much better.
I agree with your thoughts here (my review of this book is actually going up tomorrow!) and I read the Wonder Woman book several months ago – it was WAY better. I’m really looking forward to Catwoman, though!
I still need to read WW but I’m hesitant now >.< IDK how I feel about reading Catwoman yet so I'll have to keep an eye out for your review when you read it!