Self-Appointed Arbiter of Good: Wonder Woman: Warbringer

I bought the YA novel Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo when it came out¹⁴⁸, because: 1) it’s Wonder Woman, and 2) it’s Leigh Bardugo. The former I’d loved since Gail Simone’s run on the character (which I’d picked up on the dual recommending factors of that writer and one of my pet D-listers, Nemesis, becoming the titular character’s love interest). The latter I’d loved since I heard (saw?) an interview where she recommended other authors. After I checked out her recommendations and found them okay, I checked out the book she’d been promoting at the time – Six of Crows – and was astonished¹⁴⁹.  

It took me until this week to listen to the audiobook¹⁵⁰, and I felt compelled to say¹⁵¹ that it should never have taken me this long. It’s wonderful.  

Leigh Bardugo “gets it” in a way that few other creators have, or at least she gets what I like about the character enough to have agreed to name my daughter, in part, after Diana, Princess of Themyscira. The plot is simple and the characters are often broadly defined, but the complicated mix of personal responsibility, hope, love, and determination that form Wonder Woman’s honor is just right. The words “How do I save everyone?” were so clear, it was as if Diana herself spoke them.  

Money well spent.  

¹⁴⁸Or near enough. I probably ordered it through my regular comic subscription service, because there I got some minimal discount from cover price. I don’t care about almost anything enough to pay full price for it. Or I value my own sense of satisfaction at savings over any sensible amount of convenience. Flash forward to Black Friday Twenty Twenty and see if I’m not saying much the same thing.  

¹⁴⁹I had pirated the audiobook version (see footnote One Forty-Eight), and though I’ve since purchased her work, it has always been with a sense of guilt and obligation after that initial theft.  

¹⁵⁰Legally.  

¹⁵¹I know this has cannonballed off of legitimate review territory into the waters of online recipe meanderings, but this is my forum, and I’ll fill it with the words I like. Write your own review of this one if you like.