justabookholic 's review for:

The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore

3.0

---

Not exactly what I expected as this focused more on the life (and many failures) of William Moulton Marston than that of the women who inspired Wonder Woman or the creation of the feminist Amazonian super-heroine. This is a biography of the creator and not truly of the creation. A majority of this book focused on Marston's inability to hold an academic job. And while that led him to a career of writing comics, under the pseudonym Charles Moulton, I felt as though there was too much focus on his failings as an academic and his lie detector, although he apparently did feature the device often in his Wonder Woman stories. The lives of Elizabeth Holloway Marston and Olive Byrne, Marston's wife and partner/second wife who served as inspiration for Wonder Woman, were included within this book as well, it felt as though it was only to service of Moulton Marston's. I more enjoyed learning about them than that of Marston as it became evident that their lives and beliefs were what he used to create Wonder Woman.