Review: Renegade

Title: Renegade

Author: J.A. Souders

Series: The Elysium Chronicles #1

Publisher: Tor Teen

Source: ARC from Publisher

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.

My Thoughts:

Renegade is definitely one roller-coaster ride after another. The setting is fantastic, the plot and storyline are utterly captivating and the twists and turns around every corner had me flipping through this book so fast just to find out how it ends. It’s such a dark book with so many secrets and lies. It’s a completely engrossing adventure with a love story to boot!

The characters fell a little flat for me. I just didn't care about Evelyn and Gavin the same way I normally care about characters. I was interested in their story lines and I definitely wanted to know where they had come from and what had happened to them in the past but I didn't really care for their well-being. So I’m thinking that since Evie was chosen to be the Daughter of the People because of her genetic perfection that she must be the most beautiful person in Elysium. Of course Gavin would fall in love with her at first sight. After years of perfecting Elysium’s genetics, she’s probably the most beautiful girl that he’s ever seen! Probably one of the most damaged but definitely beautiful. They kind of have this insta-love scenario that I really don’t like because they don’t even know each other. 

Mother was definitely my favorite character! She is so cold and conniving and manipulative and she brain washes all these people to believe that the “surface” is plagued with fatal toxins and that they will die if they go up there. And how old is she really? We don’t know! Mother is so mysterious! I loved the whole back story of how Elysium was created. 

OMG that twist at the end was just crazy! The Elysium series is one that I will be reading until the bitter end and I will wait at the edge of my seat for the rest of the books to be released! Renegade is the type of dystopian books that I love!