I’ll let you in on a secret: I hate superheroes. No idea why, but I could never stand them. However, when our book club picked Renegades by Marissa Meyer, I thought this could be a book that would surprise me. And it did, even if only because I received a Dutch copy instead of an English one.

Renegades

Renegades tells the story of two young superheroes: Nova and Adrian. Okay, superheroes… that might be a bit of a stretch in Nova’s case. She tends to use her superpowers as a force of evil, because she’s actually a super villain looking for revenge. Driven by hate, she infiltrates the Renegades, a group of superheroes protecting society. But then she meets Adrian, a young hero with the skill to bring to life whatever he draws.

Young heroes

I admit it was stupid of me, but I really thought I had bought an English copy (although the Dutch title is completely different…dunno how I missed that). Oh well. I’m not a fan of translations, but I have to say this one was quite good. It didn’t bother me at all that I was reading in Dutch and that’s truly remarkable. Kudos for the translator!

It’s very hard for me to write a review of this book. I suspect I’m double the age of the intended audience. If you are older than 13, you might want to stay clear of this book. According to the publisher, it’s supposed to be 15+ but I disagree. This, combined with the theme, resulted in me not liking this book. But I’ll let my inner teenager speak and will try to forget that I don’t like superheroes for the remainder of this review.

The writing is very fluent, understandable, and humoristic. There’s a nice balance between a fast plot and character development, which is very well done especially for a book for young teenagers. The chemistry between the two main characters felt a bit shallow and out-of-the-blue, however. It would have been better if a bit more time had been spent on that.

If you have a bunch of characters that are all defined by their one “gift”, there’s a clear pitfall for them to be nothing but that one thing. For the two main characters, I felt this was not really an issue, but it was for most of the supporting characters, unfortunately. Take the villains, for example. They are all one-dimensional characters like the Puppeteer, Phobia, and Queen Bee. Now that I stop to think about them, they are actually quite creepy.

If you’re a young teen into battles between heroes and villains, then I would definitely recommend this book. I don’t think it’s suited for an older audience, however.

As I am clearly not a part of the target audience, I don’t think it would be fair to attribute gemstones:

Age Category: young teenagers

Trigger Warnings (click here, may contain spoilers)

Very mild. Warnings for parental death.

Do you want to discover more?

If my review inspired you to pick up the book, don’t hesitate to check it out at Goodreads or at the below online stores. If you decide to buy it via one of the following links, I will receive a small percentage at no extra charge for you!

Amazon.nl: Renegades Hardcover edition

Similar to this

Are you into superheroes? Then I have some good news for you! Part two (Archenemies) and part three (Apocalyps) of this trilogy have already been released!

In that case, I would also recommend Fire Wave by Ana Stanojevic. This is a self-published book about aliens and superheroines. My review of the first part of this trilogy is available here.

Marissa Meyer also recently published Gilded, a new fairytale retelling. This story takes the reader to the magical but haunting world of Rumplestiltskin.

Finally, if you are into the work of Marissa Meyer, I would also recommend you to read Skyhunter by Marie Lu. This story takes place in a world ripped apart by war. Mara is one of the last free nations but danger has arrived at its borders. Main character Talin is part of an elite force that is trying to keep the evil forces at bay. When a mysterious prisoner arrives, she believes he could very well be their final chance. I wasn’t a bit fan of this book myself because I feel it was too young for me (my review), but if you liked Renegades, I really think you might like this as well.