Renegades!

RENEGADES (Renegades #1)

Written by Marissa Meyer

Published by Feiwel & Friends, November 7, 2017

My star rating: 3.5 stars

THE SYNOPSIS:

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. Find it on Goodreads

MY REVIEW:

So, if you’ve already seen my review on Goodreads, then you would have seen that my rating was only 3 stars. Before you lose it on me – hear me out!! It’s not that I didn’t enjoy this book because I totally did!! I REALLY liked it actually. But it was just one of those books that didn’t motivate me to read at lightening speed. While I was reading I was really into it and excited. But when I wasn’t reading I just felt kind of meh. I would look at the book cover and not feel an itch in my fingers to pick it up. Side note – When are we going to get half stars Goodreads!? I feel bad giving it three stars when I could have mentioned that it was 3.5! That half star makes a difference people!!!!

Anyways, let me get further into my thoughts. The thing I loved the most is the thing I was most nervous about – and that’s the superhero element! My goodness this was SOOOO wonderful! I loved learning about all their powers and the fact that they all dressed the part, capes and all!  One thing I’ve never admitted is that I’m not a fan of super hero stories. I mean, at all! I can watch a super hero movie but when reading a book…… I just can’t! This one I couldn’t drink it all in fast enough!! I wanted to know everything about their powers, their costumes, their tools – everything!!!!

And you can’t really have super hero’s without villains! I mean, it’s just a balance thing! But what Marissa Meyer was able to accomplish with the blurred grey lines between good and evil was just glorious! I understood both points from the Anarchists and the Renegades, which tossed and turned me back and forth from side to side. It was so confusing and mentally unstable lol. I kept rooting for one side more than the other until that side decided to do something stupid. But then again, the main character Nova was just as confused as I was!!!

Also, another amazing element of this book was the world building. I mean, spectacular! I could envision how everything looked which was really helpful during the higher action scenes. Nothing felt detached. It all felt like this giant living being that I was actually a part of. There was just so much detail! But, having said that, it also became this books downfall for me. I felt that the amount of world building that was happening, from beginning to end, really got in the way of the plot and characters moving forward. The action was stalled to further assist us in envisioning our surroundings. The envisioning was wonderful, but it felt like that’s all I was doing sometimes.

Which brings me to my next point – the pace. Let me just say that the first chapter of this book was like WOW!! Marissa Meyer didn’t mess around and she packed quite a punch with that intro! But the rest of the book seemed to lack that initial ‘punch’ and ‘shock value’. Things would be set up to explode and make your jaw drop and then….. nope! Denied! It did hold steady but I just expected there to be more highs throughout. The pace is really the main reason why I rated this one so low. I had such a hard time pushing myself to keep going and spent a lot of time wondering if the chapter was over yet.

All of that being said, I have a good feeling that this book is setting up for an amazing sequel! The world building is done, the character building is complete, so now we can get more into the story. The stage has been set and I’m still happy to continue with this one! ALSO, just saying, that the Lunar Chronicles only got better as it went on! I loved the first book Cinder, but it was all the books that followed that put that series on my all time favourites list! I’m confident things will only get better!

And now I want to wear a cape………

Until next time, happy reading!