Renegades

There have been quite a few YA superhero stories these past few years. First, before their popularity, Brandon Sanderson made his Steelheart series of books, which I loved reading. Next, there was the DC Icons series of books, where a new author tackles a different famous DC superhero. Now, Marissa Meyer decided to throw her hat in the ring, with her Renegades series. I was intrigued by the premise and the title and so I thought I'd give this book a shot. Yet, even after reading this book, and writing down a proper outline and everything, I still do not know what to make of this novel overall.

This book is based on the idea that superheroes exist in our modern day, here called prodigies. One day, a group of them come together and formed The Anarchists, to tear down the governments that wish to suppress them and their powers. The Anarchists win and this gives way to general lawlessness and chaos as the only authority people must watch out for are the local gangs that take the governments place, and The Anarchists, who tolerate them. Then, another group of superpowered people, called the Renegades, come together and in a big battle, kill defeat the Anarchists, restoring to hope the people. Cut to ten years later and we follow a surviving Anarchist named Nova aka Nightmare, who sees the Renegades as the people who failed her when she needed them the most, as her parents were murdered when she was a child. Angry, she wants to do something about it, but her mentor and fellow Anarchist Leroy, disagrees at any direct approach after she failed to kill the Renegade Captain Chromium and instead suggest an alternative plan: join the Renegades as a spy. She then takes up the mantel of Insomnia, as she joins the Renegades as they try to find the person who shot at the Captain (aka her). We also have the viewpoint of Adrian aka Sketch. He is a Renegade who sees the system as being able to only go so far, and to that end he decides to go against his team, and take up the secret mantel of The Sentinel, whom he feels can do more being independent of the Renegades. Can Adrian find out who it was that tried to kill Captain Chromium? Can Nova keep her secret, and find a way to get information on the Renegades, or will her morality win out as she sees that there are more to these people than fancy capes?

As I said in my introduction, I feel conflicted when it comes to this novel. This is because for every element that Meyer introduces, there is something about it that leaves me wanting more. One example could be the espionage in this novel. We see Nova try and hide her secret from the Renegades, and Adrian hide his secret identity as Sentinel. Both times, they come close to their secrets being revealed, but then something else happens to pull them away from the edge of discovery. Things don't go as planned, or the objective changes on the fly, and the tension is ratcheted up again. Meyer has this ability for putting the reader on the edge of their seat, as far as secrets being discovered. However, there is just the small problem that for all the talk of secrets being discovered in this novel, there is very few moments where actual spying is going on here. This brings me to a complaint that I have seen other people make, in that for all of 500 pages, very little happens on this book. I'd agree with this to some extent, but, as far as the espionage is concerned, I think this is a slow burn of a spy thriller TV show, rather than the action packed summer blockbuster film people were expecting.

The powers on display here are cool as well. You have the seemingly ubiquitous ones like the superhero who can control water, or the one who is as invulnerable as Superman, coupled with the strange (kid who can control and turn into smoke, girl who can turn into a swarm of Monarch butterflies) and the downright creepy (man who can analyze and project the fears of those around him, woman who can control bees and hornets). These varied powers come into play often in the story and are used to good effect when they are called for. Meyer strikes a delicate balance between our heroes being in danger, while also being able to get out of said danger without it feeling too convenient. However, Meyer also falls into the trap of having the reader remember these characters based only on their powers, and not their personality or backstory. She just doesn't have strong enough a writing skill to make them memorable to me, to their point that I can remember who Insomnia and Sketch are, but I had to look up their names for this review.

There are also a few decent themes here as well. The most prevalent among them being the question of who a hero is depends on what side of morality you stand on. Throughout the novel Nova mentions that the Renegades are people who are worshiped like gods, and are constantly getting in the way of people like her, who just want to live out their lives in peace. Yet, we see though Adrian, and his two fathers, who are members of the original Renegades, that they do not think of themselves as gods at all. Instead, they legitimately want to help restore the world to its former glory and this is the best way they know how to do it.

But these themes come at the cost of world building. It may be considered a dystopia, but it isn't written like one, with the environments being a weird combination between dystopia and modern life with superheroes in the not-too-distant future. In it, everyone seems to work for the Renegades, who have the coolest tech, and an awesome R&D department. No one seems to be going hungry, and they all have new clothes. Yet many homes in the city are either crumbling or condemned, and many people do not have a sense of time before the Age of Anarchy, so they have very few things like birth certificates and public libraries, or cars and public transportation. The emptiness of the city adds to this feeling. Apart from the massive public parade at the beginning of the book, we never really get a sense that people live in this city, nor that a world exists beyond it. This can leave me feeling like I am reading about the city of Chicago from Divergent (aka, one that is deliberately cut off from outside society), but that is just it, I'm not supposed to.

All of these conflicted feelings make me want to not like this book. The characters are good enough, the world building is good enough, and the story itself is good enough to be very readable at many times. But I cannot ignore how little substance there is for such a long book. Therefore, I give it a 3 out of five. A middle of the road rating for a middle of the road book.