82.) [Arrow: Vengeance], [[Oscar Balderrama]] and [[Lauren Certo]] ***

This first tie-in novel to the CW TV series Arrow sounded like a neat premise but in execution it was fairly lackluster. This is meant to be read after one has seen season two of the show, and the novel provides background for the three major villains of season two and then retells season two from those villains' points of view. The villains in season two were great, and I see why doing a book from their povs was appealing, but unfortunately the book just doesn't add much to what we already know about them. We get a handful of details about their pasts we didn't have before and a couple of little moments that fill in bits we weren't privy to in the season, but it's definitely not 448 pages of new or interesting or compelling stuff about these guys. And all the stuff I love most about Arrow (Oliver and the rest of the main cast, the crime-fighting, the archery) is mostly off the page here (naturally, given the structure of the story). I feel like this would have been a *much* better idea for a comics tie-in. The writing was competent genre "get the stuff on the page," so I don't see any reason why I won't check out the other Arrow tie-ins, in the hopes that they have more interesting stories to tell. ( )