Publisher's Weekly Review
Shot while intervening in a robbery, Barbara Gordon loses both the use of her legs and her best friend, who stops talking to her after the incident. Enrolled in an in-patient rehabilitation program at the Arkham Center for Independence, Babs finds her anger and withdrawal lessening after she makes a group of new friends, who share stories of change and play card games and wheelchair basketball. When one, a girl named Jena, suddenly goes missing, Babs suspects foul play and immerses herself in investigating the unsettling mysteries of Arkham, utilizing her skills as a hacker and the help of allies inside and outside the center. This sharp-edged mystery nods to the Batman universe while centering Barbara, grounding her story, and granting her agency. Preitano excels at depicting emotion, particularly anger, through faces and body language to portray an intent young woman learning to move forward from trauma. Nijkamp repeatedly explores the idea that people with disabilities needn't be "fixed," along the way considering how stories can be used to reveal hard-to-communicate truths. Ages 13--up. (Mar.)■
Kirkus Review
Nijkamp (contributor: His Hideous Heart, 2019, etc.) reimagines the backstory of Oracle, computer genius and ally to Batman. When skilled hacker Barbara "Babs" Gordon and her best friend, Benjamin, attempt to intervene in a robbery, Babs is shot. Six weeks later, the newly paralyzed Babs reluctantly rolls into the Arkham Center for Independence, where teens with disabilities undergo physical and emotional rehabilitation. Despite her father's well-meaning advice, Babs resents being there. Even the mysterious cries within the mansion's walls can't lift the teen's despondence--until Jena, a burn survivor full of haunting tales, disappears. Aided by supportive patients Yeong and Issy, whom she gradually befriends, Babs must accept her new reality in order to find Jena and escape a sinister plot. The author sensitively portrays Babs' frustration and trauma and realistically addresses her challenges, such as mastering wheelchair ramps and negotiating stairs. Babs' increasing self-confidence is heartening, and the message that people with disabilities don't need to be "fixed" in order to thrive is empowering (albeit slightly heavy-handed). Balancing bright and dark colors, Preitano's (contributor: Puerto Rico Strong, 2018, etc.) illustrations vividly convey Babs' anger and determination, and a jigsaw-puzzle motif reflects Babs' quest to piece together her new identity as well as the institution's secret. Most characters present white. Yeong, who walks with forearm crutches, is cued through her name as Korean; Issy, who uses a wheelchair, presents black. A refreshingly disability-positive superhero origin story. (Graphic fantasy. 12-16) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Barbara Gordon is a teen hacker, puzzle-solver, and mystery-lover who spends evenings on Gotham City rooftops, coding away with her best friend. But after a gunshot paralyzes Barbara from the waist down, she--now using a wheelchair--is consigned to rehab at the Arkham Center for Independence. As she is divorced from friends and family, her fear and anguish compound themselves, and she angrily pushes back on everything she always believed herself to be. The huge, dark mansion of the institute has some huge, dark secrets, though, and cracking that code will require her to find strength in new friends and her old self. Nijkamp is freed from continuity here to create a complete and emotionally compelling journey for a character who needs to reclaim her life and identity, and overall, readers will find in Barbara a deeply human understanding. Preitano drenches the dark mansion in creepiness, particularly via several stylized story-within-a-story interludes, but keeps the personalities of the characters, their vulnerabilities and strength, front and center.
