Black Widow: Forever Red | Review

"Love is for Children"

I am...conflicted. It's going to be hard to review this without spoilers. So non-spoilers is going to be short.
The writing style is done pretty well, definitely hit more on the young side of YA than I thought it would. Black Widow isn't super prominent as it more sets up a secondary character: Red Widow. I disliked alot of the earlier plot points. But by the end I did like the idea the author was going for. It ended genuinely pretty well. I dont hate the book, but I still didnt completely enjoy the ride. I'm more interested in the sequel.

Heres the spoiler section so I can talk more about what I liked and what I didnt like.

-The romance was something I really didnt expect from a Black Widow book. Its interesting because the quote, "Love is for Children" was taken LITERALLY in this book since it was the kids that fell in love with each other. I really wish this wasnt the case. I didnt like how Alex mostly followed along because he was infatuated with Ava. I thought the ending was compelling, having Alex die and Ava devote most of her cause in memorium for her fallen love. I cant help but feel they should have carried this over to the sequel. I dont know if Stohl knew she was writing a sequel or not but I think if she found a better way to integrate Alex into the story and didnt start the romance until closer to the end, then continue it into book 2, kill him then, and THEN have Ava become Red Widow, would have been better received.
-The whole...mini Widow thing? I think it would have been less annoying to get so little of Natasha if we didnt have a LITERAL clone of her. Like Ava is just Widow....it was kind of annoying. Interesting, but again, when youre expecting Widow and get discount Widow...not fun. Furthermore, Ava in general was fine, less annoying than Alex. I actually really liked how she kept getting annoyed by Alex's hero complex. But then she just suddenly switches to "I dont want to be alone anymore. Ill let him in." Her personality is further annoying for how much she blamed Natasha. I really liked how Natasha kept snapping back like, bitch I survived it, you can too. Im glad Nat didnt have some emotional revelation that she did something wrong in the end. Unlike with Alex, I like how Ava had a compelling and interesting reason to be interested in Alex. It was cool when you find out she sees Alex because Widow is watching him.
- Speaking of which, lets talk about Alexei. Alex being a Romanoff was...ok I suppose. I didnt mind it, but the set up was difficult to swallow. Especially since I ALREADY didnt like Alex, and the fact that the first thing he did when he found out was throw a tantrum on Nat in the middle of dangerous territory was so fckn annoying. I was really done with the kids by this point. The ending wasn't completely lost on me with his death. But it could have been better with a less annoying set up

I'm mostly interested in the second book because I assume it will be more actual spy plot with Red Widow being a bad ass on her own without a neural link to Natasha and cool powers. Widow not having to babysit would be nice too.