Renegades by Marissa Meyer (Renegades book 1)

“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.” - taken from Goodreads.com

I have been holding off reading this book since it first came out. With the second book out, I decided to go ahead and give the audio version a listen and I'm glad I finally did. I will say that the story starts out extremely slow. With this being the first book in a new series, the world building and background stories of the two main characters takes several chapters to flesh out.

Nova Artino is an Anarchist, the bad guys, and the niece of Ace Anarchy, who was killed by Captain Chromium, the head of the Renegades, the good guys. Ace was the last remaining member of her family. Her parents and sister were killed by a rival villain gang as she hid hoping that the Renegades would come to save her. They didn't, but Uncle Alec/Ace did and took her in. Nova, aka Nightmare, became the youngest member of the Anarchists.

When Nova’s assassination attempt on Captain Chromium fails, nightmare becomes wanted by the Renegades. Nova's Anarchist family believes the best way to exact Revenge would be for Nova to compete in the Renegades trials as a renegade, Nova could glean inside information on how to bring them down. What she doesn't count on is finding new friends.

The most important thing Nova and readers will discover is what does it really mean to be a hero or a villain. As it turns out, there really isn't a clear-cut answer. And that last sentence is a game changer!

Book two, Archenemies, is now out.

Visit Marissa Meyer’s website.