Thank you Pan Macmillan Australia for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:

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.

Review:

Don’t get intimidated by the size of the book, the concept of the book was enjoyable. I loved that the characters had super abilities, actually I thought it was brilliant and that it went beyond the power vs no power battle. It dove deeper into two sides with power doing what they believed was right. Wait I may have jumped the gun, basically Meyer has created a world where prodigies (humans with special powers) used to be restrained and controlled. One man Ace Anarchy stood up and fought for their freedom, except it  may have gotten a bit out of control and gangs emerged from the shadows and carried out wicked crimes. From the horrendous world rose the Renegades, who overthrew the Anarchists and restored what they called peace.

I loved this book better than Meyer’s others, don’t get me wrong I didn’t hate her other books, I just liked this one more. What I really took from the book was both the Renegades and the Anarchists have in common is they both want the world to be a better place, and that they are slightly blindsided to that fact.

The start of the book was brutal, no other way to say it, you don’t expect it and it’s a superb way to draw you into the story. You meet Nova and her mother, father and younger sibling Evie and then you read about how they die and how Nova was the sole survive of a family massacre. At this moment Nova realizes that the Renegades aren’t what she thought they were after they promised to protect her family. Taken in by the Anarchists Nova has her mind set on who is the enemy: the Renegades.

Nova ‘Nightmare’ who is in hiding with the Anarchists underground, has the ability to put people to sleep with the touch of her skin against theirs. Which is a low key yet awesome ability and she fights to put an end to the council and the Renegades. I love her quick wit and charm, and the fact she purely doesn’t need anyone to help her at all. After all, she’s got this.

Now is the chance to mention that this book is done from two different POV, one being Nova and the other being Adrian ‘Sketch or Sentinel,’ the son of the original Renegades who was killed. Now he lives with his two dads who adapted and raised him. I would love to tell you what his power is but I think I need to leave that up to you to find out. Yes I know, I love doing this to you but nothing beats the element of surprise, and like most characters Adrian has a secret, a pretty rad one at that. I loved that Adrian wasn’t smug and was honest and caring, which makes it easy to forget what happened to Nova’s family and hard to pick a side.

The way this story is written from Nova and Adrian’s POV makes it hard to pick a side, they both have knowledge and faith for what their cause believes in and they both believe in what’s good for the people. Both sides are justified with their reasoning the only chose is which side would you take?

There are a few other awesome abilities in this book that I found fascinating, one could bleed rubies and another could control bees, does it get any cooler than that? However cool abilities aside there was a few things about the book I wasn’t too fond of. The first was its size, not that I was intimidated I just felt as though it didn’t need to be that long and there were a few parts in this book that I felt as though they wouldn’t be missed. There was a great deal of character thinking and feelings from their POV and I felt it was overkill. The only other thing that I noticed was that it had an extreme X-Men vibe to it.

Back to the book though, as much as Meyer’s book is captivating, I found it very predictable. Don’t get me wrong, I usually try my best to figure out what’s about to happen and mostly get it right but unfortunately in this case it was a little too easy to guess what was about to happen.

Over all I recommend you read this book if you love superheros with captivating powers, thrill of the chase and the over battle to take control. You won’t be disappointed, after all this was better than the Luna Chronicles.

Rating: 5/5

Publisher: Macmillan Australia

ISBN: 9781760555313