[Book Review] Renegades by Marissa Meyer

Secret Identities. Extraordinary Powers. She wants vengeance. He wants justice.

The Renegades are a syndicate of prodigies — humans with extraordinary abilities — who emerged from the ruins of a crumbled society and established peace and order where chaos reigned. As champions of justice, they remain a symbol of hope and courage to everyone... except the villains they once overthrew.

Nova has a reason to hate the Renegades, and she is on a mission for vengeance. As she gets closer to her target, she meets Adrian, a Renegade boy who believes in justice — and in Nova. But Nova's allegiance is to a villain who has the power to end them both.

2 STARS

This book is a hard one for me to review because I am a bit disappointed and I was really excited to finally read this story. I've read both the Lunar Chronicles and Heartless and loved them both so much. So when  I heard Meyer was writing a superhero series I was all signed up and ready to read it. Renegades was one of my most anticipated reads! I had to wait so long for my copy from the library. However, it didn't really live up to the expectations I had. 

The two main characters were a hit or miss. For the most part I enjoyed Nova's character. I found her to not be as believable as a villain. She was raised by villains for 10ish years which really doesn't line up with her character. She immediately likes the Renegades when her plan is to defeat them. I expected her to soften to them in time, but it wasn't a natural process. She all of a sudden liked them which felt weird. But as a character, I did enjoy her. Her witty remarks and sarcasm had me laughing and I really liked her independence. The other main character, Adrian, was a bit of a weaker character for me. His motivation for finding Nightmare felt a bit random and I am not sure if it's just me, but because I had no real connection with him I didn't care about his mission to find Nightmare. I wanted to see more moments with him and his dads, the other Renegades, or Max. He was such a boring character to read about, especially since he is one of the two characters we follow throughout the story. 

I did love all the different superhero abilities. They were clever and super fun to imagine. I definitely would have liked more moments of all the superheroes working together and being able to really use their powers during fight scenes. Because this is the first in the series I assume we will get more of that in the future. I understand why we needed to be in Nova and Adrian's POVs for this book, but I hope we get other perspectives in the future. I was way more interested in the Renegades like Red Assassin, Smokescreen, and Monarch. However, the Anarchists were all meh for me in this book. We don't see their powers all that much and their characters fell flat for me.

The story is really predictable. Which I think was one of the most disappointing parts about Renegades for me. Every twist or turn in the story I had already guessed, and each time it happened I found myself annoyed. I am normally proud when I figure out any twists before they're revealed, but this time I just got annoyed. I don't love surprises in my everyday life but I do enjoy being surprised by reading. And typically Meyer is really good at getting me with some sort of twist or turn! In both the Lunar Chronicles and Heartless I remember moments I was genuinely surprised! So I was disappointed by that. I also had a habit of putting the book down a lot. It took me way too long to read this book because while I was reading I wasn't loving it (but I wasn't hating it). However, the moment I put it down I never had the urge to pick it back up. If I wasn't pressed for time because it was due at the library it probably would have stayed on my desk for longer. 

The writing was easy to fall into the story, which is something I always expect from Meyer because her writing and fictional worlds are so easy to love. But there were a lot of moments where it was just too slow for me. I am  not sure if it was the events in the book or the fact that I didn't connect strongly with the two main characters but I kept waiting for something to happen that got me hooked and it never really did. I felt like the book was too long and there were too many parts where the pacing could have been altered to make it a more enjoyable read. Maybe it was because it's a first in a sci-fi/fantasy series, which is common. So I am hoping this improves in the next book. 

Overall I'm not sure if I can recommend this book. I may pick up the sequel from my library whenever it is published but it's certainly not a high priority for me. I love Marissa Meyer enough to give the series a second chance, but my expectations are now pretty low. I can only hope that now that we have built up this world we can get into the more exciting aspects Meyer has planned. 

Thanks for reading!