Howdy Fellow Book Nerds,

I hope you’re staying nice and warm as the season gets a little ghastly out there. Kansas City seems to have finally descended into winter, and I’m wondering when we’ll get some serious snow. It’s perfect book weather, so hurry up Mother Nature!

Anywho, today I’m sharing another book review.

This time I read Renegades by Marissa Meyer.

Marissa Meyer is famous for her books, but I picked this one as a buddy read with Gigi aka the Beachy Reader because it had a superhero vibe. How can you go wrong with that? Stay tuned for our buddy read and rant, but until then, keep scrolling for my individual review.

Blurb:

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

The Review:

DNF @ 33%

I wanted to love this book, really I did.

Unfortunately, I did not finish this book and stopped one-third of the way through.

On the surface this seemed like the perfect book for me. A superpowered apocalypse? Sign me up! However, the writing wasn’t strong enough to keep my interest on several levels.

In a nutshell, this book is about a young superpowered girl with a sad past. Ever since Nova lost her family she’s blamed their deaths on the superhuman Renegades that were supposed to protect them. The only thing that keeps her going is the promise of vengeance and the ragtag family of outcasts she’s a part of. Will she have her revenge or die trying?

The main thing that actually worked for me was the concept and prologue. I love superheroes, and the post-apocalyptic world it’s set in is interesting. The prologue was well-written and was a great intro to Nova and her haunted past.

After the prologue, things took a downward spiral for me.

What really killed this book for me was the writing. The chapters are simply too clogged with details the reader doesn’t need. We are constantly given visual cues, so often that it makes each page drag. The reader doesn’t need to know every little detail of every scene. It’s just too much, and I started to get tired of it after a few chapters. I will say that I enjoyed the action scenes that we were given (kudos to an author who isn’t afraid to write action scenes!), but again it could’ve been tightened up to flow much better.

In a similar vein, the characters drone on too much about their issues. Sure, Nova has plenty to be mad about and Adrian does too, but their incessant internal ramblings slow down the pace even further. I did like the characters in general. Adrian in particular was entertaining with his abilities and how he used them, but it just wasn’t enough for me to keep going.

Is the author talented? Yes. They obviously have a knack for writing, but the execution was off for me and the content needs to be edited down.

Sorry, this one’s a flop in my eyes.

That’s a Wrap!

Thanks for stopping by, and happy reading!

Have you read this book before? What did you think? Do you have a book recommendation similar to this one? Feel free to share in the comments!

If you’d like to see other reviews of mine, feel free to check out the book review section of my blog or my GoodReads. You can also follow my GoodReads reviews here. There are some great binge-worthy books on there!

Have a great day!

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