Title: Wonder Woman: Warbringer
Series: DC Icons #2
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
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.
*The Reader’s Review*
Wonder Woman: Warbringer is as wonderful and fierce as you’d expect coming from the amazing creator of the Grisha universe. Leigh Bardugo delivers a fantastic new chapter to one of the world’s most beloved heroines and it will even have you adding new friends to your superheroes list!
What I Loved:
I was pleasantly surprised to find that this novel is set partly in the modern world, where technology reigns and yet humans haven’t learned from past mistakes. The stark difference between Themyscira and our world is wide, yet they seamlessly clash as Diana and the Warbringer, Alia, are thrown together, setting off on a quest to stop the Warbringer legacy in Alia’s blood from bringing more chaos into the world.
As one would expect, Diana is already an amazing force in Wonder Woman: Warbringer, despite not yet being the heroine known in the human world. Fiercely loyal and with dreams to prove herself as a true Amazon warrior, Diana breaks the rules and risks exile in the hopes to somehow stop the oncoming war that Alia is drawing. Diana’s point of view was an absolute joy to read about as we see her grow into the heroine she wants to be. However, when she starts to recognize our value thanks to beautiful characters introduced in this novel—to the point that she is willing to FIGHT for us humans, despite how other forces perceive us—it basically had me cheering at the top of my lungs.
Actually, in this book we also get another point of view from an equally amazing heroine! Alia is tied in first place (with Diana) as my favorite for she is smart, brave, and incredibly inspiring. A girl who tries hard to do anything for her brother and the people she loves, yet someone who yearns to be free to do whatever she wants without compromising anyone’s safety. I simply LOVE Alia so much and I’m super glad to have met her!
Oh, but I cannot leave without mentioning how much I ADORE the rest of the characters in this book. The dazzling Nim with her love for fashion and Theo with his uncanny ability with technology, even Jason who would pretty much do whatever it takes to protect Alia. Such a splendid cast of characters!
It’s truly a dream come true having a YA novel about Wonder Woman written by none other than Leigh Bardugo. I’m positive she did more than justice to Diana’s story and if there’s one author who I would trust Wonder Woman’s origin story with, it would be her. Leigh Bardugo’s writing is always rich and powerful, and you can see it highly reflected in this DC Icons novel.
Final Verdict:
Wonder Woman: Warbringer is fantastically diverse and entertaining, it shows the points of view from two heroines of different worlds, and reading about their fights, their hopes, and their dreams, surprisingly left me with tears of joy running down my face. It’s a truly wonderful gem of a book and new and old fans alike of Wonder Woman are in for an empowering treat!
I see this book EVERYWHERE. Everyone is so positive about it! I'm not really sure if it's something for me, but everyone likes it that much.. Maybe I'll pick it up, because I'm very curious!
I was also on the fence but after seeing such high praise (and watching the movie LOL) I just had to know how it would turn out. Also, it's Leigh Bardugo!!! Super hard to skip it.
I'm so glad you enjoyed it! I've heard pretty much nothing but fantastic reviews for it, so I'm thinking I might have to check it out. I'm not really that into comics/comic characters, but hey, it's Wonder Woman! Great review! 🙂
Oh, this is definitely a read for everyone! I'm not much into Comics but this book is EVERYTHING!
I love Leigh Bardugo and I love Wonder Woman even more so I'm definitely going to have to read this asap.
IT'S THE BEST COMBO EVER