Renegades (Renegades #1) by Marissa Meyer

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

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.

I've been excited about this book for a while! I love Marissa Meyer's books so when I heard that she was doing a book about superheroes I knew that I had to read it. First of all, look at that cover! I love it! It grabbed my attention before anything else because it is so eye-catching!
I loved this book from start to finish and have to say that it is my favorite Marissa Meyer book to date! I thought that everything was really well done. 
The plot was thought out making the pacing, in my opinion, on point. The book was long but didn't feel as if it was. There were tidbits of information thrown in to hint at the direction that the book would take. I also found this book to be thought provoking on a level that was surprising to me. It seemed like there were three stances that were provided for readers to decide between with each of them getting adequate weight in the book so that the author does not seem to be forcing the reader to lean one way or the other. Should the world have no one with powers at all so that people can depend on themselves? Should the superheroes be allowed to be in charge even though crime still takes place? What if the superheroes were the only ones with powers so that villains were taken out of the equation? These questions made the book so much deeper and enjoyable. I was easily able to immerse myself into this world where the world had been both destroyed and put back together by prodigies (people with powers). A world divided by regular people who love prodigies and other who tolerate/dislike them. It was exciting!
The book begins by throwing the reader into Nova's origin story. We get to see where she grew up and what her family life was like. The author also manages to do a bit of world building through Nova's background by displaying the type of living conditions and economical shape that the world is in. (I feel at this point that I should throw a disclaimer in this review that there is quite a bit of violence and the story is a bit dark as evidenced by Nova's origin story and how she came to side with the anarchists.) I loved her as a character because she was bad@$$ and I am a sucker for a strong heroine. She was stubborn but somehow conflicted in her feelings which made me think that she was also humble to a certain extent. I thought that her power was interesting as it wasn't something that I had seen before and it had tactical use in a fight. 
I also found Adrian to be an interesting character. I wrote him off at first because even though his power was unique he seemed kind of clueless about the world as well as how to be a renegade. I would have thought that he would have been better at it considering he grew up in that world. I came to appreciate Adrian as I got to know him better over the course of the book. The author doesn't go into as much detail with Adrian's background but it is clear that he and Nova's backgrounds were quite different. Having his point of view in the book gave a different point of view on renegades, anarchists, and the way that the world was. I found it refreshing. 
I loved the action in the book! Marissa Meyer didn't make any of them over the top or flashy. It felt as if she was attempting to establish how fights would look in this world where people were equipped with powers and new age fighting equipment. There were quite a few small fights, chase scenes, and explosions. This book had intensity and made me feel like I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. The author deals with secret identities in a different way wherein people don't really know each other even if they think they are on the same side. I can't wait to see what Marissa Meyer will do in the next book. I have a feeling that the action will be ramped up especially with what she revealed at the end of this book.