Review: Renegades

Renegades by Marissa Meyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Renegades is the first in a planned trilogy by author Marissa Meyer, focusing on the lives of people who have super powers and how they use these powers to become either a hero or a villain. It's a very simple idea, really, so Meyer does some good in fleshing it out.

Nova - our lead villain - is not simply a villain for the sake of it. Her family had been killed by a rival gang back in the Age of Anarchy and the Heroes of the time did not save them. Her Uncle Alex - know to the world as Ace Anarchy, who was pushing forward for a world in which people with abilities could use them and that meant running against the law - took her in and she has long planned her revenge. It's decided among the remaining Anarchists that the best way for them to take out the Council of Heroes - the hypocrites - would be to sent Nova in undercover to train as a Renegade. Let them learn about the misuse of power, and then they will find a way to strike and to take them all down.

Only, that's not exactly what she finds, and those she thought were loyal to her may not be and there was more about Ace Anarchy's defeat than anyone knows...

Overall? It's a fun read and makes for a cool origin story for all our leads without bogging down to heavily in the tropes of the origin story. I'll be interested to see how it develops from here, and what that ending means for Nova going forward. I like the girl, she's brash and headstrong and getting a worrying look into what being an Anarchist means. She's not sure she's ready for it, but she's not sure she fits with the Renegades either. Her thoughts on what it means to have powers, not just to those who have them but to others without are interesting reading because from what we see, it can't exactly be said she's wrong.

Yeah, I'll be interested in how her story progresses. Plus superhero stories are fun.

View all my reviews