PARAFANTASY: REVIEW: "Renegade" by J.A Souders

Dec 23, 2012

REVIEW: "Renegade" by J.A Souders

Title: R E N E G A D E (The Elysium Chronicles #1)

Author: J.A Souders

Pages: 364

Publisher: Tor Teen

Release Date: November 13, 2012

ISBN: 0765332450

Rating: *4 Stars*

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...

Guys, this book blew my mind away...seriously

From the beautiful utopian underwater setting of Elysium, to the deliciously sweet romance, the got-to-love-them characters, and the heart-pounding escape—what’s not to love about RENEGADE? It is rare that I find a book that is able to keep me so entertained and invested in the story. Guys, seriously, don’t let the cover fool you—Renegade is not just a gorgeous cover. It has a beautiful, action-packed, kick-butt storyline to match.

Utopias, claustrophobia, and brainwashing, oh my!

Reading Renegade gave me my first real case of readers-claustrophobia. While Evelyn didn’t seem to mind her underwater utopian home of Elysium I constantly kept getting the chills thinking what life would be like if I never got to see real sunlight again. The setting and world-building is what did it for this book. The technology, the way the society works, and the explanation of how the heck a society of people can survive underwater was pretty darn fascinating. I loved Evelyn’s character, especially toward the end as she began to get back some of her old memories and she became this awesome kick-butt heroine as opposed to the fragile meek brain-washed girl we meet in the first few chapters of the book.

Romance, and my overall thoughts on the book...

Words cannot express how adorably sweet Gavin and Evelyn’s relationship is. Seriously, I awwed! for like half the novel. Although it may look it at first I didn’t feel like there was any insta-love. It genuinely felt like Evie and Gavin grew to like each other gradually, and for the right reasons. Not just, hey I think you’re hot. I think a great deal of Evie’s initial attraction to Gavin was brought on with her fascination with everything to do with the surface, and because she liked learning about the surface so much that sparked a lot of their conversations in the beginning.

In a nut shell, Renegade is a tantalizing debut novel worthy of re-reads. I seriously can’t wait to read future books in the series!

Confusions with Renegade:

What happened to Evelyn’s “father” toward the end? He all of a sudden just disappeared in the middle of the book. His only purpose seems to be giving Evie the necklace which unlocks a few of her memories, but after that he practically vanishes. He didn’t seem like he was brainwashed like the others, or that he was particularly approving of Mother’s way of ruling Elysium. I kind of expected him to have a much larger role in the book than he did.