‘Renegade’ review

Renegade by J.A. Souders

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
It’s been a while since I’ve done a review, but I’m back!

At first, I wasn’t sure what I was reading. Evie – the main character – read very young and immature. The writing wasn’t too developed and there was an overuseage of words. But I always try to finish a book I’ve been asked to review, and in this case, I’m glad I pushed myself past those awkward first chapters.

Because then the book morphs into an action filled, mystery packed, suspenseful story. The setting was intriguing, though I would have loved a little more description of it. A world undersea! How fantastic! I wanted to really feel it. Rather than have Evie spend the first couple of chapters being uninspiring and often, frankly, annoying, she could have been our eyes a little more. Because we could trust her eyes even if we couldn’t trust her mind.

And the mind. I LOVED the conditioning aspect. The repetition of lines like ‘My life is almost perfect’ which is the dead giveaway when something is wrong. I spent most of the book asking ‘why’ and at the end it was all explained, if not in a rushed and anti-climatic way. But I did enjoy the conclusion.

There was a lot of action and adventure in this. As I was reading, I couldn’t quite believe that 3/4s of this book was dedicated to the escape, but it was and I loved it. I kept thinking that something was going to happen and both Evie and Gavin would be captured and a new storyline would happen. But it didn’t.

Evie was developed well, but all the other characters needed more. Gavin was a little…empty. I liked him, but only because he helped Evie. Their romance was VERY fast, and while I understand first impressions and love at first sight, I didn’t quite buy their strong feelings.

However, I did really enjoy this book and the bad points I mentioned didn’t interrupt the flow of the story or the enjoyment of it. 4 Stars.

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