Black Widow: Forever Red Free 12 Chapter Preview

by Margaret Stohl

108 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2015

About the author

Margaret Stohl is the #1 New York Times, PW, USA Today, LA Times and Internationally bestselling co-author or author of twelve books, including the BEAUTIFUL CREATURES NOVELS, the DANGEROUS CREATURES NOVELS, the ICONS NOVELS, MARVEL'S BLACK WIDOW NOVELS, ROYCE ROLLS & CATS VS ROBOTS THIS IS WAR (forthcoming!) She writes the MIGHTY CAPTAIN MARVEL comic for Marvel Comics (ongoing) and has contributed to countless videogames; currently, she is a Narrative Director at Bungie.

From the author:

Goodreads Peeps! Please note I no longer review the books on my shelf, "stars"-wise. I do list books I read, and they're all automatically marked as 5 stars. That's because a) I don't list books that I didn't like enough to finish and b) I didn't want to delete the ratings I had already given. If I particularly love a book and feel inclined to comment, you'll still see the comments here. Sadly, I have to ask: please don't reproduce these comments on book jackets, websites, or in any other medium for the marketing of books. They're only meant for fellow goodreaders. Thanks so much!

ABOUT ME:

Writing has gotten me in and out of trouble since I was 15 (back then, mostly just in trouble.) For 10 years, I designed &/or wrote for lots of video games, one of which was nominated for “Most Innovative Game Design,” but I lost to a rapping onion. If you know games you get why my two bad beagles are named Zelda and Kirby.

School: I spent more years in it than a person ever should, because let’s face it, reading books is so much better than having a job. I fell in love with American literature at Amherst and Yale, earned an MA in English from Stanford, and studied creative writing under the late great poet George MacBeth at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. I taught Intro to Film as a TA at Yale and Romantic Poetry as a TA at Stanford. Don’t tell the people at Yale but sometimes I taught the section before I’d seen the movie it was about...

I live in Santa Monica, CA, with my family, most of whom were enslaved into working with me in one form or another on my first YA book for Little, Brown. I’m not kidding; when my daughters wanted to go to school I said “Why are you so selfish? Get back in there and edit,” and by said I mean yelled and maybe threw things, it’s all a haze. Now the Beautiful series has wrapped, but you can see the movie on February 13, 2013 or read my new book ICONS on May 7th. Nothing gold can stay, Ponyboy.

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eight years ago, Natasha Romanoff rescued a young girl from the clutches of one of her Red Room handlers. Now, Ava Orlova is alone in the world and distrusting of the redhead who saved her then abandoned her. She's on her way to a fencing competition, where she meets a boy she's dreamed about, Alexei. But it seems someone else has been looking for these two Russian orphans as well...

I was so excited for a Black Widow novel! My main problem here was that I wanted more of Natasha instead of these new characters, although the very end of this preview brought Natasha back and showed that Ava and Alex had plenty of ninja moves themselves. I also discovered that Ava is going to be introduced in an upcoming comic book series as "Red Widow." I am still looking forward to reading the whole novel, but it's fair warning that this is not all about Black Widow as I had originally assumed (I was kinda hoping for teenage Natasha). Hopefully some of the other Avengers will make cameos (fingers crossed for Hawkeye and Winter Soldier).

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know that this is just a sample, but I feel like they cut it off just as it was getting good. Which makes sense, because the author wants me to go buy the book. The problem is, the first eleven chapters weren't good enough to get me hooked. The only engaging bits were literally the first and last chapters.

Simply put, this was okay. A bit slow maybe, but nothing terrible. My biggest issue was that there was barely any Black Widow in a book where she's the title character. I also wasn't particularly fond of the little transcript bits at the beginning of each chapter, they weren't very well written and seemed like nothing more than a delivery mechanism for shoddy one-liners. Which sucked because other than one chapter from her pov and one scene in the last chapter, those transcripts are all the Black Widow we get.

I'm a lot less excited about the release of this book than I was before I read the sampler. That is not a good sign.

[CataleyaLuna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Personally, this was just disappointing. I will read the book because Natasha, obviously, but I don't think I would have otherwise read it. The characters were weak and fairly uninteresting. the romance felt awkward the whole way.
And where was Natasha! For a titular character, she was barely there. Also- how did she not immediately take Alex down when that Cap guy dropped him easily. What? Yes, I get that Alex was surprisingly good and yes, I get that Widow was holding back but come on! From what I saw, this book is not about her, it is about Ava and Natahsa is not badass. Sigh. Note: I am fine with a book about this new girl Ava, but call it RED WIDOW instead!

[Eliza Warren · Rating 1 out of 5]

Black Widow was an insult to young adult novels. By the end I was wishing I had never picked it up. The characters were bland, the plot was weak, and the writing was sloppy. Don't read this

[Stellaluna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was quite good, and made me want to read the full book.