REVIEW: Batman: Nightwalker by Marie Lu // epic characters, thrilling writing but a little underwhelming.

Holy Batman! THAT WAS SOME EPIC STUFF RIGHT THERE.

I’m not even kidding, THAT WAS SO GOOD. It’s subtly mind-blowing and incredibly enjoyable. I did not expect to love this so much. But, I mean it’s MARIE LU FOR GOODNESS SAKE, of course, I loved it.

me right now

Thank you to Penguin Random House for the review copy! All opinions are my own.

Madeleine is my little manipulative queen AND SHE SLAYS MY EXISTENCE. Guys, YOU WILL LOVE HER. She’s officially my favourite anti-hero ever. Marie Lu writes her SO WELL. She’s freaky and weird and the most perfect liar of all time and she is so SMART. She will actually surprise you so much plus she is so bad-ass and I just want to combust.

OH BRUCE My little idiotic, soft superhero. I admit, his superhero-ness, like getting involved in things that didn’t involve him, did annoy me but most of the time he was great. I mean sure a little bland but I like his determination and his plans and his braveness.

Alfred my British sarcastic cinnamon roll. He is honestly so precious and I love his and Bruce’s relationship. They have the best banter together and it honestly warms my heart.

Alfred frowned at him. “Where do you inherit all this sarcasm from, Master Wayne?”
“I don’t know.” Bruce leaned forward and hung an arm over the side of Alfred’s seat. “Maybe it’s from you.”
“Me? Sacractsic?” Alfred sniffed, the barest hint of a smile appearing on his lips. “It’s as if you think I’m British.”

Dianne was a wild beast that shall never be tamed. I love how she and Bruce have a platonic relationship because it shows that boys and girls can be just friends. There wasn’t even a slight hint of romance between them and I adore Marie Lu for doing that.

Harvey WAS SUCH A RUSHED CHARACTER. I have no opinions on him because he was literally the third wheel. Dianne and Bruce literally exclude him out of everything. But I also have a problem. His dad abused him and then at the end, Harvey finally reports him and yay; Harvey stays with Bruce and he’s not being abused!! Obviously, that’s a good thing. But, the WAY it was written was like..”yeah, all you have to do is report your abuser. No struggles in that whatsoever.” Which I don’t think is a good message? I think his story should have been developed way more. I don’t think you can just throw in topics like that and then not deal with them.

Draccon is a fierce police officer and doesn’t take no for a freaking answer. She’s one of the strongest women in this book and I loved her for that. She put Bruce in her place so many freaking times, It was so funny.

“You mean in your dreams, Wayne?” the warden said. “I think she’s out of your league little boy.”

The writing was good and matched the story perfectly. It described everything and was super eerie when it needed to be. And I actually had to take deep breaths at some points. Like when Bruce was in the house and the Nightwalkers were trying to get him, I was literally SCREAMING in my mind and holding my breath. LITERALLY, guys, I’m not even exaggerating. It was so freaking tense.

It was super fast-paced in my opinion, aside from the beginning, plus it was only like 250 pages? So it’s not too dense and it was a super quick read. SO ACTION PACKED GUYS. get ready for your heart to be beating at 67896 times per second. :0

AGH MARIE LU WRITING A ROMANCE?! Of course, you can trust her. Actually, freaking hell, can you? Her relationships are always so complex. I do think it was between slow burn and insta love and for Bruce I do think it was like “hi. omg, i can’t stop thinking about you” BUT he was in denial because his love interest is a freaking murderer, OF COURSE, HE’S NOT GOING TO ACCEPT HIS FEELINGS.

While they were cute and the romance was quite on the side, I do think she would have been better off without Bruce. But they’re shippable!

Madeleine looked bleakly at him. “This story can’t end happily for us,” she finally replied, tearing her eyes away and standing up. “So let’s just finish this.”

Now I won’t say too much because SPOILERS and because a lot is discussed below and while I think an epic gang of villains called The Nightwalkers is a great idea, I also think it wasn’t executed as well as I wanted. The nightwalkers motives are SO disappointing but I do like how evil and cunning they are and their malicious plans so there’s that.


So Marie Lu is like obsessed with futuristic technology. We saw some in Champion and Warcross was based on virtual reality and this? You can JUST EXPECT ALL THE TECHNOLOGY AND COOL GADGETS. I do think she does it a lot but I never fail to get hooked on her mastermind ideas. There are cool robots (ADA) and Bruce’s gym is so epic wow. If working out was virtual reality-based? You could count me in and I would be as fit as ever.

GRIEF & RACISM WERE TACKLED

So we all know that Bruce’s parents died when he was a child and this book discusses that you know? I love that it talked about grief and handled that very well. 

“People always expect you to move on so quickly after loss, don’t they?” Madeleine looked away.”For the first few months, the sympathy pours on you. Then, gradually, it dwindles down, and one day you find yourself standing alone at the grave site, wondering why everyone else has moved on to caring about something else while you still stay right here, silently, carrying the same hurt. People get bored with grief. They want something new to talk about. So you stop bringing it up because you don’t want to bore anyone” 

And then the racism! I respect Madeleine even more for this because she says:

“Bruce what would have you done if your parents had been shot not by some random burglar, but murdered by an upstanding doctor? If you weren’t so rich and white and famous? Would you be the same person as you are today? Or would you seek justice differently? Do you think we all walk through the world with the same privileges as you?”

I SWEAR I FOUND REFERENCES

Grace Hopper is a computer scientist and Marie Lu referenced her! I AM SURE. I researched this lady and i swear, this is exactly what she used to do omg. Is this accidental? Because Hopper used to take apart clocks when she was younger too and she was a programmer as well.

Anndd SHERLOCK HOLMES NUGGET IN HERE. Excuse me while I squeal!
“I suppose I have more in common with Holmes than I thought.”
Violin.

THIS IS ALL SPOILERS SO PLEASE SCROLL PAST IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE BOOK. THE SPOILER TAG MAY NOT WORK FOR YOU (IF YOU ARE USING MICROSOFT EDGE/INTERNET EXPLORER) SO SCROLL TO WHERE IT SAYS “END OF SPOILERS”. THERE WON’T BE FURTHER WARNINGS.

CLICK HERE FOR SPOILERS

• I didn’t think the plot twists were that huge. To be honest, they were a little underwhelming. I mean it was Madeleine’s brother ALL ALONG. Eh. While I didn’t predict this, I didn’t care who the freaking leader was. Plus, Cameron was honestly so freaking boring. He just seemed like this angry little kid who screamed about everything when he didn’t get his way.
• And Cameron’s backstory also confused me. Why was he slitting people’s throats? Why did he need the money? I actually don’t understand a whole lot  So what?? The doctors didn’t treat him at all. I get it. They described it as “revenge” but they’re not the people who hurt you.
• And even if we overlooked that fact, Madeleine didn’t seem all for it anyway. She says at one point they weren’t supposed to die so why was she even involved in the operations? I mean it didn’t take her long to betray her brother at the end so why not do it earlier?
• And Madeleine being alive doesn’t make sense because she was shot in the freaking stomach. Maybe their hospitals are much better but still I hated that she was alive. The same trick was pulled in another book and it’s such an overdone idea. If you’re going to kill off a character, KILL OFF A CHARACTER?! Like, obviously I was happy but I was also tremendously annoyed because it didn’t ADD anything to the story.

END OF SPOILERS!!

It was good. I had a few problems with Harvey and Bruce being a bit bland but it was intriguing and I was invested and it was good. I’m not too into superheroes but I still enjoyed this! SO I don’t think it matters if you are a fan of batman because this is Bruce Wayne pre-batman.

RATING: 4 STARS

★★★★☆

Batman: Nightwalker

by Marie Lu

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.

BATMAN: NIGHTWALKER WAS PUBLISHED ON JANUARY 6th 2018. You can order a copy here and read my original review here.

Have you read Batman Nightwalker? What did you think? Who is your favourite anti-hero? Are you a fan of Batman? Do you like Marie Lu’s books? Have you read Wonder Woman: Warbringer? (I haven’t yet!) What do you think of the DC ICONS series in general? Tell me all friends!