Although this book is perfectly appropriate for middle-grade readers, no matter your age, if you love superhero stories, you are going to love Renegades. Is it predictable? Yep. Are the themes familiar? You bet. Is the story original? Not even a little bit. But you’re still gonna love it. When the Renegades (a syndicate of prodigies) promised to but then failed to protect her family from an evil gang which ended in the deaths of her father, mother, and baby sister, seven-year-old Nova vows to bring them down. Lucky for her, her uncle (who does rescue her from the apartment where her family lay murdered) is the head of the Anarchists so she’ll have no problem finding like-minded accomplices. Also lucky for her, Nova is a prodigy. She has the power to make people fall asleep at her touch. She also never sleeps. Years later, when she fails to kill Captain Chromium and other Renegades at the annual parade, the Anarchists decide to let Nova enter the Renegade trials as Insomnia in hopes that she can infiltrate the Renegades and take them down from within. She’s down. What she doesn’t expect, of course, is to learn that the Renegades with whom she’s paired are just like her. And Adrian, aka, Sketch, the adopted son of Captain Chromium and the Dread Warden, is not only driven and principled just like her, but he’s adorable, and kind, and, did I mention adorable? His superpower is the COOLEST. He can make anything he draws come to life. Something else cool about Adrian? He has a secret alter-ego - the Sentinel. The Sentinel isn’t exactly happy with how the Renegades do business. Who does he serve? Who does Nova serve?
Told from both Nova and Adrian’s POVs, readers will be dying for the two to just be honest with each other and see that their aims are really the same. Not gonna happen in book one! I’m already excited for the second and final book in the series. Tons of fun, lovable and relatable characters, awesome heroes and villains with super-cool super-powers, Renegades is gonna be crazy popular. It begs to be made into a movie. A no-brainer for Truman or Gateway.
I highly recommend the audio! Narrated by Rebecca Soler and Dan Bittner. They are PERFECT.