Renegades by Marissa Meyer-- Villainous Outfit + Blog Tour Review

I am SO excited to be on the Blog Tour for Renegades by Marissa Meyer!!  I loved Heartless and the Lunar Chronicles, and I've been wanting to read Renegades since I heard about it.  I'm not the most super-heroey kind of reader, but knowing how much I love Marissa's writing, I was hopeful I would fall into this story, just as I have with her fairy tale retellings.

For the tour we had to pick Renegades or Anarchists-- and being a villain (and Slytherin) in real life, I obviously chose Anarchists.  After reading the book, I'm super pleased to say I made the right decision.  And I'm going to share a villainous outfit with you to celebrate:

Book Summary:

Secret Identities. Extraordinary Powers. She wants vengeance. He wants justice.

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.




Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | iBooks | Book Depository | IndieBound


For all the details (and an awesome Renegades vs. Anarchists quiz), go HERE!!

• Backstory-- So, my personal inner super hero is Super Reader Girl.  It's based on a costume I put together for Halloween last year, and when I decided to come up with a villain costume, I knew I needed to make Super Reader Girl's arch nemesis.
• Introducing: The Book Spoiler.
• She's the daughter of Cliff Notes, a man who The Spoiler watched being scoffed and humiliated by teachers and other educated elitists for helping students get through tests and book reports WITHOUT reading the book.
• Now-- she's on a mission to spoil the twists and endings of every book to avenge her dear old dad.
• (PS-- Cassi @ My Thoughts Lit totally helped me brainstorm this idea, so I have to give her thanks & credit!)

SUPER READER GIRL COSTUME by pinkplkadotblog featuring clay earrings

VS.

The Book Spoiler Costume by pinkplkadotblog featuring zip boots

Tell me: Who are you riding with, Super Reader Girl or The Spoiler??

The Renegades is basically X-Men meets Batman in YA form.  Gatlon City is governed by the Renegades, prodigies with varying sets of powers-- and while this is universally accepted by most, the Anarchists, super villains left over from before order was set, are definitely NOT cool with this.  It's not that they want power (although they wouldn't mind being able to come up from the subway tunnels), they just don't think it's right for the Renegades to be in control of everything.

Our main characters are Adrian and Nova.  They are the Batman and Catwoman of this book-- knowing each other in their daily lives, and each having a super-secret identity that works against the other in their off time.  Nova is an Anarchist looking to avenge her parents and uncle by infiltrating the Renegades organization under a false identity.  Adrian is the son of the 2 most powerful Renegades, and leader of Nova's Renegade squad.  Adrian, who can draw things into reality, has been working on turning himself into The Sentinel, a superhero with multiple powers like no one's ever seen.  While testing it out, he's gathered more attention than he wanted and now telling people he's The Sentinel just never seems like it's a good idea.

What I liked: the backstory of these 2 teens-- they're both carrying some parental death vendettas.  It's always more interesting when revenge and secrets are involved.  I also loved that all the prodigies had different sets of powers.  That has always been my favorite part of the X-Men franchise, because you never know what their powers are going to be, and why it's going to be useful.

This book brings up themes of discrimination, blurring the lines of good vs. evil, and different theories on governing style .  It was an interesting and well developed world.  I especially liked how the question of whether superheroes are the best ones to be in charge of the government was brought up.  At first glance, I would've said of course they should!!  But after looking at it from the Anarchists POV, I kind of get why it's too much power for people with superpowers to hold.

I was a fan of how Marissa Meyer actually had me siding with both the Anarchists AND the Renegades at one point or another.  I mean, the Anarchists were the underdogs, and I love a good underdog!!  But they also had a point-- the Renegades were sometimes clueless and smug.  BUT Adrian proved that there were Renegades who thought that their governing style could use some work and further thought, and so I kind of started wishing he would be the catalyst for change in the organization.

What I was kind of ??? about: this book felt SO X-Men to me-- down to the boy in quarantine, Max, being SUPER similar to that of Jimmy in X-Men: The Last Stand.  Also, Sentinels are robots in X-Men: Days of Future Past, so maybe in the sequel to this book, she might try to get more original??

The world and character's storylines were so well-developed that I felt like I was just getting into the actual action and story when BAM, it was over.  Being that it was over 500 pages-- we should have been able to have the world-building, the history of the characters, AND the action in the here and now.

OVERALL: I liked this Superhero/X-Men story, and will definitely be reading the rest of the series.  It wasn't the most original story, but it was still a Marissa Meyer book through and through.  I totally recommend to comic book fans-- or fans of superhero movies and tv shows.  It was interesting to delve into the idea of whether superheroes should be allowed to also govern-- and it had a cute, flirty romance thing going on.

My Rating: 4/5

Note: I was provided a complimentary ARC of this book from the publisher, but my review is my honest opinion :)