In a world that’s clearly divided by humans and prodigies, people with unique superpowers. Prodigies split, creating heroes and villains, where good meets evil (alright, maybe not that one-sided). It’s only right when – classic Meyer – a hero who believes in justice and a misunderstood undercover villain falls in love.
Spoiler alert 😀
If you haven’t read this and want a summary, go ahead. I’ve included the skeleton of the plot.
To provide some background, prodigies were tormented for hundreds of years until telekinetic Ace Anarchy changed everything. He turned to chaos and rebellion against humans and soon the world fell apart. That’s when the Renegades appeared. ‘Good’ prodigies that swooped in and saved humans, saving the world from going awry. Enter our scene, set in post-anarchism ages.
Right. So how exactly does this play out?
The story has two sides of the coin, told from two different perspectives. Nova Artino is one, alias Nightmare. She’s our awesome badass Anarchist (you guessed it – a villain in simple terms) whose family were murdered when she was only 6 due to the Council unable to protect them. As a prodigy, her powers include sleep manipulation and the inability to sleep. Her orientations were to give prodigies (Renegades, Anarchists, and everything in between) and humans freedom to roam and rely on themselves instead of being under the rule of the Council, the group of original Renegades that fought against Ace, who were now acting as the ruling body in Gatlon.
So to do that, Nova and the other Anarchists attempt an assassination on Captain Chronium (put it simple, equivalence to Captain America in Avengers) during the Renegade Parade. It fails. The remaining Anarchists are under the critical eye of the Council once again. Backup plan, infiltrate Renegades HQ. So under a fake profile, as Nova McLain, she attends the Renegades trials, beats a Renegade with nothing but her human combat skills, and catches the eye of our other protagonist.
Enter Adrian Everhart, alias Sketch. The pragmatic and optimistic Renegade with a secretive, dangerous alter ego – the Sentinel. Now this prodigy might have lost both his parents as well, but he decided to move under the care of his mom’s friends (alias Lady Indomitable, part of the Council before she was murdered during the Age of Anarchy), Hugh Everhart (alias: Captain Chronium) and Simon Westwood (alias: Dread Warden). YES! This is confirmed gayness.
His main goal in the book seems to be tracking down Nightmare and getting answers after Nova said something cryptic that matched the card that was found on his moms body when she was found dead. Too bad he didn’t get any closer to her than he did on day one – minus the falling in love with his enemy part. Throughout the book, however romantic it might be, he seemingly achieves NOTHING. Yeah, I know the Renegades is a series, but c’mon. Sketch is literally the second protagonist and all I’m seeing right now in this entire book is his personality and vulnerability to fall in love with Nova.
Hidden crushes aren’t the biggest hole in the book. It’s the fact that Nova only managed to stay as a double agent inside the Renegades simply because of PLOT ARMOR. It’s almost painstakingly obvious that Nova just doesn’t belong. From her encounter with the mirror walker (Narcissa, the Librarian’s granddaughter) and the Puppeteer (Winston, one of the Anarchists), to the use of her Nightmare suction gloves and the spectacle of buzzing bees, hornets, and wasps right in her fake backyard, for many of the more detective savvy readers, these clues are big red flags waving in front of the Renegade’s face.
The entire book seems sluggish and hastily created. In fact, if this was a stand-alone book, I wouldn’t even bother. The only things I got from this book is 1. Nova and Adrian love each other, 2. Ingrid was a confused ass, 3. Ace Anarchy’s (who isn’t dead at all) strength-enhancing helmet is intact somewhere in the Renegades HQ, and lastly 4. The justice-loving Renegades might not be as good as they want you to believe with the power absorbing weapon they plan on using on any prodigy that doesn’t their Renegade regime – Max, bae, not your fault. So in this 550 pager, the only thing that was remotely surprising and interesting was 3 and 4. Not the best action-packed, page-turning superhero thriller romance out there.
To be completely honest, there’s not much to critique when it comes to this book. It’s good on multiple aspects and you can see the buildup in the character development and plot. In comparison the Heartless – since Meyer wrote both of them – this is definitely way better. My gut did twist in the suspenseful bits, part of me did die seeing the library destroyed, and the realizations and close calls Nova experienced inside enemy territory made me gasp with awe, fear, and anxiety.
I absolutely took in the characters. I’m a complete sucker for books that don’t portray one-sided characters. The ‘good’ are actually not as good as we think. The ‘evil’ have heart-wrenching backstories that lead us to question just how much of their actions are actually malicious (Ingrid you are definitely, hands down the exception). So this book definitely raised some morality questions within me.
Hyped and actually looking forward to reading the next book in the series: Archnemesis.