City News
Renegades by Marissa Meyer
Reviewed by Nicole
In a world full of prodigies with ranging powers both good and evil one girl searches for revenge while one boy craves justice. Renegades by Marissa Meyer takes place in a world where superheroes, known as Renegades, lead society away from the Age of Anarchy, which was originally a rebellion to free the suppression of prodigies, but ultimately turned into a time of major crime lead by rival prodigy gangs. Nova’s family was killed when she was six during the Age of Anarchy in her home. She desperately waited for the Renegades to save her, but they never did. She has never forgotten their failure to show up and blames them for the death of her parents and her little sister, causing her to join the Anarchists, a group whose main goal is to get the Renegades and the Council of original superheroes out of power. Acting under the identity of Nightmare she plots to destroy the superheroes who rule with her ability to put a person to sleep with skin to skin contact. While Nova searches for revenge, Adrian’s sole goal is justice. He is a Renegade and the adopted son of two of the most famous Council members. He believes in everything that the Renegades stand for. Leading his own patrol team, he operates as Sketch to help citizens with his ability to make his drawings become physical things. Their paths cross as she tries to assassinate the Council. He becomes obsessed with hunting down Nightmare in hopes that she will have answers for him. Nova knows that the only possible way to get the information she needs to take down the Council she must infiltrate the Renegades. Nova and Adrian two stories become connected as they both have the answers the other seeks, but they represent two conflicting ideals about what is best for their society as it struggles to piece itself slowing back together.
In my opinion this book is a seven out of ten because while it was an action packed book full of deception, betrayal, and prodigies with incredible abilities there were often periods within the book that seemed to fall short of others. The book took a while before it started to really get into the plot and seemed to drag on in certain places. While Marissa Meyer is an amazing author and shows her writing skills in this book there is an unevenness to the novel with periods of intense action followed by periods of fifty or so pages long that seemed to do nothing to further the plot along. With a book like this full of important people who all possess different powers it can often get confusing to keep track of some of the characters, luckily there is a list of the most important people in the front of the book including their names and their superhero powers. Even though there are at times lulls in the books progress and it can be confusing to keep track of the characters this was still an amazing read with a truly unique concept to read about. This books showed me two different ways at looking at the same situation because there are always two sides to every story. Even though most would think that Nightmare is a villain Meyer writes in a way that readers tend to empathize with Nova. Overall an enjoyable book that transported me to a world beyond reality.