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Mini-Book Review: Renegades & My New Crush Gave to Me


Renegades
Author: Marissa Meyer
Series: Renegades #1
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Romance
Release Date: November 7, 2017
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

Goodreads | Amazon | TBD

Summary:

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.

 
First Sentence: We were all villains in the beginning.

I received a copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for a honest review. All opinions are my own and I was not compensated for this review.

My Review:

I know this review is long, long overdue, but I’ve been trying to put my thoughts together and frankly, it’s still a jumbled mess.

On one hand, I really enjoyed Renegades. I love all the action scenes and the plotting and the superheroes. (I’m in the middle of a superhero obsession okay.)

But on the other hand…a little voice at the back of my head is whispering, “but Kelly, doesn’t the entire book of Renegades feel like a setup?” and honestly, yes, it does. A huge part of Renegades was just filler and backstory: why Nova hates the Renegades, how the world came to be this way, even how the good guys’ headquarters looks. After reading all 556 pages, I’m sad to report that I feel like nothing happened. Yes, I learned a lot about the world and a lot about the characters, but did anything plot-wise really happen? No. Am I really invested in the characters? Again, sadly no.

I think the biggest problem for me is usually, superhero stories are told via comic books. A page of a comic can describe how the good guys’ headquarters looks and what the characters are thinking as they’re looking around the headquarters. In a book, you use words (obviously) to describe the scene and too many words describing a location just…dulls you. (Well, at least it does to me.)

And then there’s the ending. A part of me likes it because of how shocking it was while the other part of me is side-eying it, wanting to hiss, “There’s no way anyone would have seen that coming!” because the ending came out of nowhere…unless you guessed the wildest things that can happen and it just (luckily) happened.

Overall, as you can tell, I’m extremely torn about this one. On one hand, I enjoyed it, but on the other hand, I just read 556 of what feels like filler. Am I going to read the sequel? Yes, just to see how Marissa Meyers will end this series because I have absolutely no idea how it would end.

three

 

My New Crush Gave to Me
Author: Shani Petroff
Series: None
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Release Date: October 31, 2017
Publisher: Swoon Reads

Goodreads | Amazon | TBD

Summary:

Charlotte Charlie Donovan knows exactly what she wants for Christmas: Teo Ortiz. He’s the school’s star athlete, in the National Honor Society, invited to every party, contributes to the school paper (where Charlie is co-editor), and is about to be featured as One to Watch in a teen magazine basically, he’s exactly the type of guy Charlie is meant to be with. The only problem he barely knows she exists.
But Charlie is determined to be Teo’s date to the Christmas ball. And she has a plan: To rig the paper’s Secret Santa so that she can win his heart with five perfect gifts. But to do that she needs help. Enter J.D. Ortiz Teo s cousin, and possibly the most annoying person on the planet. He’s easy going, laid back, unorganized, spontaneous, and makes a joke out of everything the exact opposite of Charlie (and Teo). But he’s willing to provide insight into what Teo wants, so she s stuck with him.
Yet, the more time Charlie spends with J.D., the more she starts to wonder: Does she really know what, or rather who, she wants for Christmas?

 
First Sentence: “Did you get yours yet?” my best friend, Morgan Levine, asked, waving the gaudiest invitation I’d ever seen.

I received a copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for a honest review. All opinions are my own and I was not compensated for this review.

My Review:

I can describe this book in one sentence: What we expected is what we get with My New Crush Gave to Me.

My New Crush Gave to Me is extremely straight-forward – what’s written in the synopsis is exactly what happened in the book, nothing more, nothing less. When I requested a review copy of this book, I expected so much contemporary fluff because doesn’t the synopsis sound extremely fluffy? Add in the fact that the book focused on the Christmas holiday and my heart was ready for some major fun. Instead, My New Crush Gave to Me was written in a serious tone because that’s how Charlie’s personality is and we’re witnessing events from her point of view. I wasn’t expecting the book to be quite this serious and as a result, I didn’t enjoy My New Crush Gave to Me as much as I could have.

Overall, there’s not much I can say about My New Crush Gave to Me. Nothing made it really stand out to me. It was an okay read and sadly not exactly memorable.

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-Kelly

Posted by Kelly on 5-21-18 · 2 Comments
Categories: 2017 book

« What Is A Kelly: Hello, Busy Season + Constant Studying
It’s All Too Real: Blog Tour + Review of Aftermath – Kelley Armstrong »

Speak Your Mind

  1. Amber says

    5-21-18 at 7:37 PM

    I’m sorry you weren’t huge into Renegades. I’m excited to read it just because I loved the Lunar Chronicles so much. I’m hoping to see what I feel about a superhero book. I’m not super into superheros so we’ll see :)

    Amber @ Escape Life in the Pages

    Reply
  2. Carina Olsen says

    5-24-18 at 7:56 AM

    Great reviews Kelly :D But ahh, I’m sorry you did not love Renegades :( I loved it so so much. But understand what you mean too, even if I don’t agree, haha :D But I’m glad you still liked a lot of it. <3 Yay :) And ugh, I'm sorry the other one was even more disappointing. Ack. Not liking books is just the worst feeling.

    Reply

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  • Trust Your Instincts: Blog Tour + Review of My So-Called Bollywood Life – Nisha Sharma
  • It’s All Too Real: Blog Tour + Review of Aftermath – Kelley Armstrong
  • Mini-Book Review: Renegades & My New Crush Gave to Me
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