Book Review : Batman - Nightwalker by Marie Lu

By Murtaza Kuwarawala -

If I had to choose between Marvel and DC, I would undoubtedly choose Marvel for movies but when it comes to handpick one superhero from the entire universe, my vote would always go to Batman. One of the quotes that I repeat most often in my life is, "Because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now.", and hence there were no two thoughts when I heard this book was coming out. Also, this is my first venture into Marie Lu books and a new author is always a new experience in my opinion.
Blurb :

Returning home from his lavish eighteenth birthday party, Bruce Wayne stops a criminal's getaway - disobeying the police and crashing his car during the chase.
Sentenced to community service in Gotham City's Arkham Asylum, he encounters some of the the city's most dangerous and mentally disturbed criminals. Among these, Bruce meets the intriguing Madeleine who has ties to the Nightwalker gang that is terrorizing Gotham City.
She's a mystery Bruce has to unravel but can he trust her? The Nightwalkers target the rich, and Bruce's name is next on their list.

My Take on the Book :

The second in the series of DC Icons books by famous YA authors (First one being Wonder Woman), this book brings out another origin story of the rich business tycoon Bruce Wayne. For a character that is acclaimed globally, penning down a new origin story comes up with a lot of challenges and unfortunately this book doesn't live upto it.

Though it is not right on my part to compare this one with the first book in the series, but being a part of it the comparison is inevitable. The first Wonder Woman book is a pretty much unexplored in mainstream media and hence getting to know the characters was pretty much necessary but with another origin story of Batman, the background fell pretty bland. Though some of the characters had a different profiling altogether in this book, they weren't as relatable as one would have expected.

Coming down to the storyline, the book pretty much focused more on setting up a premise for Catwoman rather than the story of Bruce Wayne. At times, one felt that the the antagonist Madelline was just another version of Selina Kyle. If I was disappointed with how DC universe is currently portraying Batman, this book was another huge disappointment and to be honest, I was expecting more on Batman action rather than the dragging bit on how the characters kept engaging with one another.. The climax was as well pretty predictable and could have been just any other YA novel.

If you are a fan of Batman, don't pick up this book. It will be a huge disappointment for someone who has been regularly obsessed with Batman. If you are a YA fiction fan, you can just pick up any random YA book and I'm sure it will be more entertaining than this dud.

My Ratings : 🌟🌟 out of 5

Book in Three Words : Bland. Boring. Disappointment.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review : From Quetta to Delhi - A Partition Story by Reema Nanda

By Murtaza Kuwarawala -
Image
Never Judge a book by its cover nor by the name it possesses. The same case happened with me when I read the title of the name 'From Quetta to Delhi'. To be honest, I didn't take any pains to read the blurb because a story on partition is something I always wanted to read an action packed story on Partition. Sadly, the book wasn't what I had expected. So, what was the book about? What did made me read the book? Read further to know about it. Blurb: The invisible cost of the Partition of the Punjab in 1947 - besides the violence, loss of life and property - was that it destroyed the psychic equilibrium of the displaced population. This is the story of one such woman, Shakunt, who rebuilt her life but could never get over the trauma of losing her homes in Quetta and Jhang - not just the loss of a physical space but of the language, culture and ethos that it had embodied. A syncretic culture of multilingualism - Urdu, Persian and Punjabi - and of multiple identities o...
Read more

Travel : Trip of a Lifetime - II

By -
Image
The cruise.... Too excited to go on a cruise, we three musketeers reached the spot 4 hours before the departure time. Unfortunately, even the cruise was late that  night. Whatever might be the case, it was worth the wait. It was the first time in our life, we had dined, partied and slept (of course individually) on a ship. 24 hours later, we were heading towards the train station to our very next destination, “The Eternal City”, Rome. Roaming in Rome... Adventures started as soon as we reach Rome. We forgot to validate our ticket and were dead scared that we might get caught by the officials. Getting down at the railway station, we helped an old lady who was struggling to come out of the train. It took us 2 hours to reach our hotel even though we were roaming on the same street and finally arriving at a disastrous room. I regret not checking the reviews for this one. Of all the places, Rome turned out to be the cheapest and our little stint at Rome and Vatican took ...
Read more

Thoughts : Love Thy Neighbour

By -
Image
Ahhhh... Love Thy Neighbor .. Years back when I was doing my schooling, an extract of the classic novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was taught to us in our English Literature class. The extract was aptly titled "Love thy Neighbor  as it portrayed the way how Uncle Tom, the central character, lived his life spreading love everywhere. So, why am I talking about this subject right now? I believe that today technology has crippled us so much that we have forgotten what it means to be with real people than being virtual. In fact, the same even applies to me as I was unaware of my juniors living in the adjacent room of mine. A few weeks back, when I was returning back via Bangalore airport, I took some time to notice people around me. People were busy with themselves either working on their laptops or talking on phone, but there was this one small incident that caught my eye. A family of 3, father, mother and their son who must be of around 6 or 7, dining together. I...
Read more