Renegades by Marissa Meyer- Book Review
Title: Renegades
Author: Marissa Meyer
Publisher: Penguin
Publish Date: May 3, 2022
Rating: 5/5
Summary(blurb): In Marissa Meyer's New York Times bestselling young adult series, superheroes and supervillains battle for supremacy of Gatlon City in a high-stakes world of adventure, passion, danger, and betrayal. Possessed with extraordinary abilities, the Renegades are champions of justice, protecting the citizens against the Anarchists determined to destroy them. But Nova walks the line of both hero and villain--torn between a desire for revenge against the Renegades and a deepening love for one of its members...
**This book review may contain spoilers for this book**
I first read this book in fifth or sixth grade and absolutely loved it. It was a superhero story (which I loved at the time), but it was more than that-- the characters were all so fleshed out and realistic, and their conflicts were understandable and multifaceted. My imagination could go wild, and the cover was very cool. (That mattered.) As the first book in the Renegades trilogy, I was infatuated with this book and sped through the next two books of the series as well. I reread this recently because I loved the superhero characters with their own superpowers, yet had very well-rounded characterization-- Having read the whole series, I know how everything ends, but I won't go into anything not in the first book Renegades.
Gatlon City, the world that Renegades is set in, is a world where most people don't have superpowers but a minority do, called prodigies(kinda like mutants, but no aliens). Initially these prodigies were persecuted heavily, but then some of them called the Anarchists realized they could stop this since they had superpowers and overthrew the government, leading to a ~20 year period of anarchy and disarray with various prodigy gangs roaming the streets. Then the Renegades formed, a group of prodigies who use their abilities to restore order to the society. The Renegades and Anarchists fought in a large battle where the Renegades emerged on top, and the Anarchists lost their influence and live in hiding.
The book centers around main characters Nova Artino(Nightmare/Insomnia) who is the niece of Ace Anarchy(Alec Artino, the leader of the Anarchists), and Adrian Everhart(Sketch/Sentinel) who is the adopted son of Captain Chromium(Hugh Everhart, the leader of the Renegades). Both are prodigies, Nova's superpower being the ability to put people to sleep and not sleep at all herself, and Adrian's superpower being the ability to make whatever he draws come to life. Being raised in two very different atmospheres, Nova and Adrian have very different ideals, which manifest through each of their respective secret identities, Nova as Nightmare and Adrian as the Sentinel. At the end of the book the secret identities don't get revealed, but Max figures Adrian out.
The plot is very nuanced with subtle symbols and interwoven ideals that are very different-- Nova, as she was brought up by her uncle and other Anarchists, wants the destruction of the Renegades since she (and the Anarchists) feel that the current government is doing too much. However, Adrian feels the opposite-- he thinks the government should do more and kick out the bad guys, instead of making endless rules and regulations, which is why he becomes the Sentinel, his alter ego who works outside of the Renegades. Nova inflitrates the Renegades by becoming a member where her power is never sleeping, hence her alias Insomnia, and joins Adrian's team. Her main power of putting people to sleep is known as Nightmare's power, so she dares not reveal that. A lot happens in the book-- but you can read that for yourself. I'll just skip to the good parts because I can't wait to write about that.
Finally, the good parts! what I loved the most about this book are most definitely the characters and their respective superpowers. The introduction lists all the main characters and their respective superpowers, including the Renegades, Adrian's team, Nova, and the Anarchists, and as a guy who loved (and still loves) to go on imagination rampages of 'what if I had this superpower', this 'cast of characters' part was amazing. It really felt like a superhero comic book intro, which I love about it, and through superpowers the reader already has a way to clearly differentiate every character in the series. Outsiders by S. E. Hinton is an example of a book that I got the names mixed up-- I could never understand who was Darry and who was Dally, who did what, etc. Ponyboy and Johnny and Cherry were much more distinctive because of their names and personalities, though.
I really liked the fact that the older prodigies had much more common and much-used powers, such as Ace Anarchy having telekinesis, Captain Chromium having invincibility/super-strength, the Dread Warden having invisibility, and Tsunami having water control, and Phobia essentially being a creepy Boggart, but the younger/newer prodigies had much more innovative and fresh superpowers. I could've never dreamed of Adrian's ability of making drawings come to life or Ruby's curse-slash-power of her blood becoming rubies, or even making paper cranes come to life. I liked the cheesy superhero aliases everyone had-- the five Council members even have old supersuits they made back when they were fighting the Anarchists.
Another part I enjoyed in the book was the side-plot of the slowburn romance between Oscar and Ruby-- it's clear they like each other but are too shy to admit it, and they keep flirting with each other, so in addition to the main love line between Nova and Adrian, Oscar and Ruby keep readers entertained.
As mentioned before, I loved as a kid to imagine myself with superpowers-- simple and cool ones like fire manipulation and invisibility, fun ones like flight or teleportation, useful ones like telekinesis, mind reading, and (through this book) never sleeping, and making drawings come to life. I'm especially intrigued by how Adrian's Sketch power works-- he was able to make his tattoos imbue him with extra powers, which is always a plus (more powers-yay), and if I had that I would probably be able to generate lots of stuff with just a pencil-- I'd save so much money. After rereading this book my most desired superpowers is mind reading and Adrian's power-- it's so useful.
Now for the disappointing parts, there weren't many of them, but one of the things I had a little problem with was how little descriptions of the setting and characters we get in the book. The book is always about what's happening at the moment, and parts of the setting come into play only when they're needed. This made me a little confused when setting and characterization information I had previously imagined differently came out-- for example, I had initially imagined Adrian to be a white guy, but when the text mentioned he was black I was confused. The only supporting images I had to fuel my imagination were the illustrations of Nightmare and the Sentinel on the cover page-- even so, I ended up imagining the Sentinel as kind of like Iron Man Mark I, very different from what the cover suggests. It would have been great if some more description and imagery was provided for the readers, but I like the current version as well since it fuels lots of imagination.
Also, while this did not happen to me, some reviews on the Internet are saying that the book is too long or that there's too much cheesy dialogue-- but I personally enjoy this, and cheesy dialogue's like a necessary part of superhero books/novels.
In conclusion, this was one of my favorite books especially with the impressive cast of characters and inner conflicts, and this reread made me love the series even more. Some downsides may have been the lack of description or the overabundance of cheesiness, but they didn't really affect me-- personally, this is the best superhero novel I've read.
I would recommend this book for grade 5 or 6 and up, there's nothing really bad or inappropriate in the book and it really feels like a novelization of a superhero comic/movie. Which is great.
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