“Natasha Romanoff hated pierogies– but more than that, she hated lies.”

From Margaret Stohl’s Black Widow: Forever Red.

This book marks Marvel’s maiden voyage into young adult literature. The story follows Natasha Romanoff (AKA the Black Widow) as she tries to sort out the mystery surrounding two teenagers, Ava and Alex, while simultaneously dealing with her painful past.  Natasha does not want to be involved with a couple of kids, as she repeatedly reminds the reader, but due to events that were set in motion long ago, she finds herself wrapped up in a global adventure with the two teenagers.

This book (which is the start of a Black Widow series) allows Marvel fans to glimpse into the before-the-Avengers Black Widow that Avengers: Age of Ultron alluded to. We, as readers, follow Natasha, Ava, and Alex as they share the narration of chapters and offer a unique perspective of the events in the story. What begins as a standard S.H.I.E.L.D. mission quickly sets off a chain of events that is bigger than any of the characters involved could have ever anticipated. An unhappy reunion and a chance meeting soon transforms into a dangerous mystery that threatens the safety of the human race. Without giving away any of the story, each of the three main characters are mysteriously connected in ways that will require Natasha, Alex, and Ava to unravel the mysteries before it’s too late, all while trying to save the world.

For die hard fans of the Marvel cinematic (or comic) universe, the book may be a difficult transition from the Black Widow that many know and love. The book takes place in the world of today sometime after the Avengers movies, but the book does not present the exact same world that is presented in the movie franchise. The first few chapters are somewhat difficult to get into, almost as if Stohl was trying to decide on a writing style for the book while writing it. If readers can remove Scarlett Johansson’s portrayal of the Black Widow from the character in the book, it is a much swifter immersion into the world of the book. After the opening chapters have completed, the story does pick up quickly, both in content and attraction; my recommendation for people interested in reading this book: just keep reading, it is definitely a story worth reading.