Review: Gamora and Nebula: Sisters in Arms by Mackenzi Lee

What: Gamora and Nebula: Sisters in Arms by Mackenzi Lee

Who: Scholastic Australia

When: June 2021

How: A copy of this novel was provided by Scholastic Australia for review.

Gamora arrives on Torndune with a mission: collect the heart of the planet. She doesn’t know anything about the mission but as the daughter of Thanos and one of the galaxy’s most legendary warriors, her job is not to ask questions. What she doesn’t know is that her sister, Nebula, is in hot pursuit. Nebula has followed Gamora to Torndune in the hopes of claiming the planet’s heart first and shaming her sister as vengeance for the part she played in Nebula losing her arm. But the closer they get to the heart of the planet—and to each other—the closer they get to uncovering the truth of what brought them there and the role they may unknowingly be playing in a twisted competition with galactic consequences. A competition they can never win… unless they learn to trust each other. And trust is the biggest lie in the galaxy.Gamora and Nebula: Sisters in Arms is the second book in the trilogy of young adult Marvel books written by Mackenzi Lee. The first was Loki: Where Mischief Lies, and you can read my review for that one right here.

I think the first think anyone needs to know about Gamora and Nebula is that it is a prequel. Maybe this is really obvious to other people, but it wasn’t to me, and I spent far too long attempting to figure out the timeline. So I’m mentioning it here: Sisters in Arms happens before we meet either Gamora or Nebula in the MCU!

Gamora and Nebula’s relationship is one of my favourites on the MCU because I am a sucker for messy sibling relationships, and also reformed villains. Gamora and Nebula encompass both these things, which is why I was so excited to read Sisters in Arms. And it did not disappoint! Aside from the mission plot (which I really wasn’t all that invested in, to be honest), this entire book was about Gamora and Nebula’s messy relationship! I was living.

Considering how much I love Nebula in the MCU, I didn’t think that Sisters in Arms would bring that much more to her character. But it really did. Being inside her head, learning about her past, and her relationship with Gamora was probably my favourite aspect of the whole book. She is conflicted between doing whatever it takes to be their father’s favourite, and being a good sister to Gamora. As I was reading, I was never sure which desire would come out on top. I won’t spoil anything, but wow there were some heart wrenching moments for poor Nebula in this book.

Where I loved Nebula’s characterisation in Sisters in Arms, I wasn’t a huge fan of Gamora. I felt like she was very much a one track mind kind of person, and I got kind of tired of her to be entirely honest. I guess there were some similarities between the Gamora in the MCU in the Gamora in Sisters in Arms, but I felt like there was some softness missing. Perhaps Peter is one of the reasons she softens as character, and she’s harder in Sisters in Arms because she hasn’t met any of the crew from Guardians of the Galaxy yet. It was just a bit disappointing, though, because I love her so much in the MCU.

The real point of Sisters in Arms is to show how Gamora and Nebula end up how they are when viewers first meet them on screen, and I really feel like Lee gave readers that. It was obvious in the end why Nebula feels the way she does, and also why it wasn’t really out of the blue for her to turn over a bit of a new leaf later in the MCU storyline. I think if you’re a fan of Guardians of the Galaxy, then Sisters in Arms is definitely the book for you!

© 2021, Chiara @ Books for a Delicate Eternity. All rights reserved.

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