Intro

For our last book recommendation of the year, I thought we’d do a fun, geeky read. As a long-time Marvel fan—and especially a Black Widow fan—I was very excited when I learned that there was a novel about her. 

But, whether or not you’re already a Black Widow fan, there are lots of reasons to love this book. It’s got lots of action and an awesome heroine that’s sure to hold your interest from start to end. Along with using established characters from the Marvel comics, Stohl also introduces a completely new character, a teenager named Ava Orlova, who acts as the co-star and is a great character in her own right.

All right, let’s get into it.

Black Widow: Forever Red by Margaret Stohl Overview

Natasha Romanoff has been many things: a spy, an assassin—and, of course, the hero known as Black Widow. But, even after her years of heroism, her past keeps coming back to haunt her. The Red Room, the secret operative academy where she was trained, seems to have resurfaced and, when children start to go missing all across Eastern Europe, Natasha suspects that they’re the ones behind it.

Ava Orlova was once subjected to the Red Room’s experiments when she was younger, until she was rescued by the legendary Black Widow and put under the protection of S.H.I.E.L.D., a global peacekeeping organization. Since then, she’s been trying to live a regular life in Brooklyn, though a part of her longs to meet her childhood savior again. 

And she gets her wish when she and Natasha cross paths, though the circumstances aren’t quite what she’d hoped. It seems that Ava’s time at the Red Room left her with strange powers, and Natasha believes that they might be the key to bringing down the Red Room once and for all. As the two of them set out to put the Red Room’s schemes to an end, however, they start to realize that their connection runs deeper than either of them thought.

Personal Thoughts

If you’re a fan of superheroes and/or action novels, you’ll love this book. It’s definitely got some of the best action scenes of any YA book I’ve ever read, and the pacing is nice and fast too. 

And, like I mentioned before, you don’t have to already be a Black Widow fan to follow the story; it exists separately from the movies and comics, and everything you need to know about Natasha is mentioned in the book. (Though, if you read the book and want to see more of her, there are loads of stories about her across different types of media to look for.) If you’re like me and already know and love her, then this book is a great way to get into her head and see things more from her perspective. In fact, I’m pretty sure that this book made me love her even more than I already did.

Outro

That’s all for today’s post. I hope I’ve convinced you to check it out and that, if you do, that you’ll enjoy it as much as I did. Or, if you’ve already read it, check out some of the similar titles I’ve listed below.

This is the last book recommendation post of the year, and I’d like to thank everyone who’s come to check them out. I’ll keep sharing more of these throughout next year, so be sure to come back again in January. Until then, thank you for reading, and happy holidays!

Books Similar to Black Widow: Forever Red

• The Winter Soldier: Cold Front by Mackenzi Lee
• The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrel Meets World by Shannon Hale & Dean Hale
• Black Panther: The Young Prince by Ronald Smith
• Renegades by Marissa Meyer