"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."
That's the description written on the back of the dust jacket of the 2nd book in the DC Icon young adult novels. Batman: Nightwalker is written by Marie Lu, who is best known for her New York Times bestselling novels Legend, Prodigy, and Champion, as well as The Young Elites. Now before you give me grief by questioning why a 36 year old would be reading a young adult book. Flipping me sarcastic emails or fb comments saying things like "Are normal adult novels too challenging for Timmy?" or "Do you still move your lips while you read?" Well I would argue that if you're interested in a subject, who cares who the target audience is, get it and enjoy it. Plus if you notice me moving my lips when I read, why are you being a creeper by staring at me while I read? Plus to quote the late great Mitch Hedberg, "Every book is a children's book if the kid can read!" So maybe I'm just young at heart, and found something that I'm interested in. Sure my wife gave me permission to buy it (after I snuck it into the cart under the other stuff so she finally saw it while it was being scanned at the register). But I'm an adult, and if she would have said to put it back, I just would have gone back to that store the next day! Enough of me justifying me getting a Batman book, I'm here to review it.
The book is hardcover, with a beautiful dust jacket with amazing dark colored artwork. The pages are a tad off white, but normal book page color, and the print size is a nice standard, especially for the young adult genre. The book comes in at 288 pages including acknowledgements and previews for the other DC Icon series books so far, Wonder Woman: Warbringer & Catwoman: Soulstealer. It weighs in at 1.1 pounds and its dimensions are 6.5 by 0.9 by 9.5 inches. Not quite small enough or heavy enough to be used as an actual weapon by Batman, but if you threw it at someone, I'm sure it'd hurt just the same. All and all I recommend this book... at least the cover and sturdiness of it, now I just need to read it!
