[Review] The Oracle Code - Marieke Nijkamp, Manuel Preitano (Artist)

Summary: After a gunshot leaves her paralyzed, Barbara Gordon enters the Arkham Center for Independence, where Gotham’s teens undergo physical and mental rehabilitation. Now using a wheelchair, Barbara must adapt to a new normal, but she cannot shake the feeling that something is dangerously amiss. Within these walls, strange sounds escape at night; patients go missing; and Barbara begins to put together pieces of what she believes to be a larger puzzle.

But is this suspicion simply a result of her trauma? Fellow patients try to connect with Barbara, but she pushes them away, and she’d rather spend time with ghost stories than participate in her daily exercises. Even Barbara’s own judgment is in question.

In The Oracle Code, universal truths cannot be escaped, and Barbara Gordon must battle the phantoms of her past before they swarm her future. (Pub Date: Mar 10, 2020)

Honest review based on an ARC provided by Edelweiss. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

Not a reader of non-manga comics, much less superheroes hq's, but this was a good and surreal experience I really enjoyed.

Bumping my 3.5 to 4 because of diversity and the girl power that transpire here.

The young hacker Barbara Gordon becomes paralyzed and is thus sent to the Arkham Center for Independence, where she tries to keep distance from others due to her trauma and her best friend choosing to disappear from her life after the accident. But the mystery of this place and her nightly visitor with scary stories to puzzle her still find Barbara.

I picked this book because of Nijkamp. She's an amazing writer who builds touching situations that have stayed with me for years. I loved This is where it ends, I dove in the world of Before I let go, there was no way I wouldn't enjoy The Oracle Code. And I was right. But only to a point.

To be honest, I couldn't see much of Nijkamp's special touch when the story had so little time to develop. This is a one-shot, and there was simply too much—the hacking, the shooting, the adaptation, the Arkham Center, and all its inhabitants... I think the point she needed to tell were so many, the part that came from the writer herself had very little room to surface and made this story a little shallow or maybe just rushed.

Still, ignoring how much I fangirl this writer, the story itself wasn't bad. I did get how Barbara was suffering both for the accident and for the loss of her best friend; it was heartbreaking. My favorite parts, though were the creepy stories. Even if they weren't a keypoint to the plot, they would already be worth it, so eerie, hollow they were.

I'm not knowledgeable in art, but the drawings and the color were pretty and agreed with the tone of the story. I've read so many mangas, to be honest, I was amazed at all that color. Also, I mentioned there was too much plot for little room, but we didn't get huge blocks of text, as I was afraid it would be in the beginning.

I think this is a good rec for those who aren't fans yet, since there's probably nothing new to those well-versed in Batman—and no direct ref to him either, although I suspect of some indirect ones. Moreover, we have a female author, a lot of woman characters, so it's also very friendly for a female audience (I can't judge what guys would think being a woman myself), which means this is a gem you can't miss.


Rating: 4 out of 5.