Book Review: Renegade by J.A Souders

  

Since the age of three, sixteen-year-old Evelyn Winters has been trained to be Daughter of the People in the underwater utopia known as Elysium. Selected from hundreds of children for her ideal genes, all her life she’s thought that everything was perfect; her world. Her people. The Law.

But when Gavin Hunter, a Surface Dweller, accidentally stumbles into their secluded little world, she’s forced to come to a startling realization: everything she knows is a lie.

Her memories have been altered.

Her mind and body aren’t under her own control.

And the person she knows as Mother is a monster.

Together with Gavin she plans her escape, only to learn that her own mind is a ticking time bomb... and Mother has one last secret that will destroy them all.

Renegade is one of those books that despite there being stuff wrong with it, it is still enjoyable and engaging.  This is the most exciting dystopian novels I have read in a while.  I struggled to put it down, and when I did to watch American Horror Story (which I am never distracted from for two reasons called Evan Peters and Zachery Qunito) I found myself distracted and just wanted to get back to reading.  

I loved the first few chapters of this book; it is hard to explain why without giving too much away.  The first few pages were misleading and I thought this story was going to be about sunshine, kittens and daises.  Do not be alarmed this is not the case at all and so stick with it.  

As I mentioned there are some issues here.  There are plot holes, inconsistences and some stuff that doesn’t quite make sense.  The main character Evelyn changes a little too often for my taste, although she does have a genuinely good reason for this.  

Out of the 3 main characters Evelyn was the weakest for me (she was still good) Gavin is a pretty awesome guy he is brave and kind of laid back.  He is pretty hard to dislike.  Mother is one of the craziest dictators I have ever come across in a dystopian novel, ever.  She is a psycho and does some awful things.

Forget about the gorgeous cover this book packs a rather gruesome punch.  It is not afraid to go to some dark places and our characters really have it tough for the majority of the book.

It is a shame that there are issues with this book.  It has a great plot and some of the ideas in it are brilliant.  If there had been a few less problems and a little more explaining of things this book would have knocked everyone’s socks off and would have been one of the books of the year.  

I hope people give this a try because there is a lot to like here.  In my opinion this book deserves some attention paid to it.

 4 stars

Published November 13th 2012 by Tor Teen.  A free copy was provided for review. Image courtesy of Goodreads

Review by Kate Phillips