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lazyydaisy 's review for:
Renegades
by Marissa Meyer
When I heard that Marissa Meyer was writing a super hero book, I was ecstatic. I loved her Lunar Chronicles series and I couldn't wait to see her take on this. But then the reviews started pouring in and they were very...divided. It seemed that people either hated it or loved it. And I was so, so scared that I would be one of those people who hated it. So even though I had my copy sitting nicely on my bookshelf on release day, just begging to be read...I didn't. I didn't touch it until now, finally, for some reason I decided that I'd give it a chance and I'm so happy that I did.
I feel like a lot of people went into this thinking they would be getting Lunar Chronicles 2.0, which will obviously leave you feeling disappointed. Was this book perfect? No. But it was still one helluva addictive and fun ride. There is something about Marissa Meyer's writing that I really love; she can keep me completely engaged in her stories even when there's nothing really happening.
So I have to start by saying that the superhero aspect of this book (which is the main aspect of the book) was so freaking cool. Everyone had such interesting powers, some had powers I'd never thought of before and I love that the main group of superheroes (Nova + Adrian and their group) all have powers that at first glance you probably wouldn't think are all that great. I also really liked the world building done in this book (though I will admit that this book felt like it was pretty much ALL world building and setting up for the future books) and how vividly I could imagine this world that they live in.
Nova and Adrian are so opposite from each other. Nova a "villain", Adrian a "hero". And they both have different perspectives on what it means to be a superhero vs villain and I really liked being able to get both of their perspectives and point of views because it really made the whole thing more complex. No one is just a villain or hero. It's so much more complicated than that and I liked how this book showed that. I really liked both Nova and Adrian and the rest of the gang too! I liked the dynamic between the characters though I wish we were shown more of it. This book is more plot driven and while we do get character moments, there weren't as many as I would have liked.
Which brings me to my complaints about the book:
1. While I enjoyed every minute of this book, I strangely feel like both so much happened in this book, and yet, nothing at all. Really, nothing happens. If anything I would say this book would be like a prologue to the main story which we don't really get until the end of the book. I'm not saying that I was bored, because I wasn't at all but everything that happened was very small things for the most part. It was all setting up for later things, world building and introducing us to these characters and world.
2. Romance was a very small part of this book, if at all. Which ok, I know that this is about superheroes and this is YA but I was expecting a little bit more than what we got between Adrian and Nova (which was nothing). I can see why the author didn't have anything happen between them in this book since not much time has gone by plus Nova has a strong hatred for the Renegades and that's not going to go away over night but the romance addict in me still couldn't help being a little disappointed in this. Also there was plenty of hints about Ruby and Oscar (side characters) but again, we aren't really given much though I'm really intrigued to know more. I don't really understand what is going on between these two characters and I hope the author delves more into that in the next book.
Overall I'd say this was a great introduction to a new series and I can't wait to read the next one. Hopefully the second book will have more character moments, more romance and more action!