[Asis’ Review] RENEGADES by Marissa Meyer

Renegades
by Marissa Meyer
Series: Renegades #1
Pages: 556
Published by Feiwel & Friends
Release Date: November 7th 2017
Genres: Fantasy, YA
Source: Retailer
Format Read: Hardcover
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From #1 New York Times-bestselling author Marissa Meyer, comes a high-stakes world of adventure, passion, danger, and betrayal.

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.

ABOUT RENEGADES

The book takes place in Gatlon City, a city where prodigies (humans with superpowers) live amongst regular people. In the past, prodigies had to hide and they were oppressed, but it all changed when the idealist supervillain and prodigy Ace Anarchy took the city with his group of Anarchists, and the world erupted into chaos… without government or any sort of control, and villain gangs spreading terror everywhere. That’s how the Renegades were born, a group of prodigies with a thirst for justice and heroism. And after a long war, the Renegades defeated the supervillains and took the city… they became the leaders and formed a Council and rules for all the citizens.

“All revolutions come with death. Some must die so that others might have life. It is a tragedy, but it is also true.”

In the story, we follow Nova, a Prodigy girl raised by the Anarchists whose only goal is to destroy the Renegades since she blames them for everything she’s lost in her life. To do that, she decides to infiltrate and become a Renegade to destroy them from the inside. She later meets Adrian, the very son of the Renegades’ leaders, who wishes to see justice in the world and bring back the true nature of superheroes. While they get to know each other, they start to realize that not everything is so black and white. As Nova and Adrian become closer, so do their villain and hero alter-egos, who become archenemies, and they begin to search for each other’s identity to destroy them.

MY THOUGHTS

Marissa’s tribute to superheroes was FANTASTIC.

I’ve always found her writing beautiful, I love the way it flows and grips you so that you can’t put the book down even if you tried. She makes everything come to life inside the reader’s head. The world-building is wonderful, with a city that has its own history, politics, and difficulties that reflect some of our own reality. And the dialogue is very well-done.

But the best thing about Renegades, in my opinion, was the characters. Each of them has something that makes them unique and real. There’s no one-dimensional character and we can highlight something from each of them. I loved the powers of all the prodigies because they’re not only the common ones we always see in stories, but we get some very different and special ones as well, and it was super interesting and fun to see the way everyone used them. I also have to mention how beautiful it was to read a novel with characters so diverse. None of the diversity (in race or gender) was stereotypical or created just to checkmark a list to please the readers, it’s palpable that it was done simply because that’s how the author sees the world —diverse, colorful, with all kinds of people —, and how she portrayed it in return… and that is something I appreciated a lot. It’s something real, natural, and simply a part of the world in the book.
Nova is for sure one of my favorite female characters I’ve ever read. She’s strong, and incredibly badass, funny and kind and so heart-warming in a unique sort of way.

“You sound like you’ve read too many comics.”
“You sound like you think that’s a bad thing.”

The romance in this book had a VERY slow-built which, to be completely honest, I thought would bother me… but it actually makes everything better, it gives it credibility, anticipation, and realism, and everything else was so great that I wasn’t even that focused on the fact that they weren’t making out. Yet I was still yearning for it because the couple is so sweet, perfect and unique and there’s so much chemistry there.

Also, the character development throughout the story it’s so huge and realistic that it only makes the characters more endearing to the reader.

“Heroism wasn’t about what you could do; it was about what you did.”

Marissa wrote a story (and an ending!!!) that makes the reader yearn to come back for more immediately. I thought it was a fantastic book… I can honestly say it’s my favorite I’ve read in a VERY long time and I can NOT wait to read the next one.

“One cannot be brave who has no fear.”