We’re in superhero land once again! This time Marissa Meyer is taking a stab at it. Now, this book is at a bit of a disadvantage for me, as I’ve just re-read Super Powereds, so it will probably fall short. I’m also trying to read it in 2 days for a book club, and reading a book on a deadline always makes it feel more like an assignment to me.
Ok, so we have people with superpowers, and they are called prodigies. They were second-class citizens until Ace Anarchist decided that that sucked, and kind of destroyed society. So now life sucked for everyone! People were scrambling and foraging and looting and stealing. Gangs of prodigies banded together to try to gain power. Then some other prodigies decided to fight and became heroes instead, known as The Renegades. The Renegades eventually take power and grow to celebrity status, trying to enforce order and protect the general populace. (Note – the superheroes are okay at superheroing, but not great at governing.)
We have two main characters, Nova and Adrian. Nova is on the “villain” side, a member of the Anarchists, who wants freedom and equality for everyone, human and prodigy alike. Adrian is a member of the Renegades, but starts to slowly see that the way the Renegades are doing things may not be the correct way. Both Nova and Adrian have lost people and are looking for revenge. I am assuming they will be star-crossed lovers at some point. (Spoiler – they are.)
Nova eventually decides to try and become a mole in the Renegades. (A ‘bad guy’ trying to infiltrate the ‘good guys,’ haven’t we seen this before?)
The Renegades are trying to keep the tenuous control over the city they have, but they’re barely keeping the city from falling apart. Nova suggests to her team that they start a regular police force of non-prodigies, but she’s laughed off, because why bother when there are superheroes to handle everything?
This kind of reminds me of what I’ve seen from previews of “The Boys.” I haven’t actually seen it, though.
I think part of why I’m not as much a fan of this book is all the betrayals and lack of communication. And also because some of these Renegade ‘teams’ are made up of teenagers, which seems irresponsible to me. And people have superhero names, but people also know their real names? It’s a code name, not a secret identity, which seems kind of reckless to me. What’s the point, marketing? I’m also not on board with the whole premise of the book. Ace Anarchy destroyed a bunch of buildings and stuff and brought prodigies into the light, so to speak. And I guess they killed a bunch of people. But why didn’t people fight back? Like the military and such? Ace was one guy, he shouldn’t have turned the entire world into a dystopian landscape. The way he went about trying to change the situation for prodigies sucked. I know a lot of people like this book, but it’s not one for me.
This fulfills the CBR12 Bingo square for “Repeat” as it was also for our teen book club!
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