2 stars
I really wanted to like this. I’m fascinated with the various iterations of Barbara Gordon. After absolutely hating that notorious scene in The Killing Joke, I was interested to see how a teenage Babs would become Oracle.
The story omits the Joker plotline (thankfully) and instead gives a vague story about interrupting a robbery. From there, Babs is sent to The Arkham Center for Independence (if this place was always meant as a Center for Independence, why did they build a mansion with that ridiculous main staircase?) where she has a bunch of moody teen scenes, makes new friends, learns to use her new wheelchair, and discovers a mystery to solve.
For me, I just couldn’t get into the story. I read it twice before reviewing, a few months apart, and it never really clicked. It feels like a book that doesn’t know what it is. A little bit superhero prequel, some disability representation, a mystery, a ghost story. All these elements can be great, but they never really came together in a satisfying way.
My favorite part of the book was actually the creepy stories Jena tells. They didn’t necessarily fit in with the rest of the book and I’m still up in the air on the details of the mystery and how much Jena could possibly know, but those stories were cool. I liked the art style and they were quite unsettling… in a good way.
The rest of the story was pretty flat for me. They mystery is kind of all over the place. The solution didn’t quite fit all the way. The details of the disappearances didn’t add up and the disconnect really pulled me out of the story. The ending was fine, but it lacked real power.
As far as disability representation goes, I liked how the illustrations showed some of the details of wheelchair use such as working on upper body strength, going down stairs (but seriously, why are there so many stairs?), ramp inclines, and daily activities. Babs leans in pretty heavily to the “needing to be fixed” rhetoric in the beginning (as do many of the characters). Some of the end realizations were nice but kind of felt like an afterthought.
An okay book. I wanted more from it.