Archenemies by Marissa Meyer

11/12/2018

SYNOPSIS

Time is running out.
Together, they can save the world.
But they each other’s worst nightmare.

Nova’s double life is about to get a lot more complicated:

As Insomnia, she is a full-fledged member of the Renegades, a syndicate of powerful and beloved superheroes. She works with Adrian’s patrol unit to protect the weak and maintain order in Gatlon City.

As Nightmare, she is an Anarchist - a group of of villains who are determined to destroy the Renegades. Nova wants vengeance against the so-called heroes who once failed her when she needed them most.

But as Nova, her feelings for Adrian are deepening, despite the fact that he is the son of her sworn enemies and, unbeknownst to Nova, he has some dangerous secrets of his own.

In this second installment of the Renegades trilogy, Nova, Adrian, and the rest of their crew – Ruby, Oscar, and Danna -- are faced with escalating crime in Gatlon City, while covert weapons and conflicting missions have Nova and Adrian questioning not only their beliefs about justice, but also the feelings they have for each other.

The line between good and evil has been blurred, but what's clear to them both is that too much power could mean the end of their city – and the world – as they know it.

Synopsis from Amazon

PERSONAL REVIEW

The Lunar Chronicles is such a great series and one that I often recommend to others, so I was very ready to fall in love with another Marissa Meyer's series. I loved the first book, Renegades (book review here), and was more than excited to jump back into Galton City and find out what comes next for Nova and Adrian.

The Ethical Dilemma's are Great
Meyer's once again provides no easy "right or wrong" choices to be had in this series; with the introduction of Agent N, the books major ethical dilemma is around who can be trusted with this and when should it be used. Nova is passionate in her opinions, while Adrian has a harder time deciding what he thinks is right or wrong. If heroes are the creators of it, doesn't that make it automatically good? Or will we see their fall into becoming the true villains? I'd love to get more of a debate going between Nova and the Renegades in the next book; the reaction to the chemical was a bit too passive to be believable.

Loved Getting to Know Heroes Better
To put it bluntly, I don't find the Anarchists to be very compelling characters. With the exception of Ace and Nova, the others are very bland sidekicks who don't seem to know what they are fighting for. Even Ace is a bit wishy-washy to me; we get to know him slightly better, but I wasn't overly impressed. Instead, I really liked spending more time with Adrian's superhero fathers and reading about that family dynamic; Simon and Hugh come off very human in this book and I really want to see more of that. I think if Meyer's wants to continue having us question what makes someone a "hero" or "villain" in this series, we need to know characters besides Nova and Adrian better. Archenemies definitely gives us some of that.

Middle Book Syndrome
I should mention is that I definitely thought this was the end of the series when I started reading, not just the middle book of the series, so I was letdown by the pacing of the story. It makes sense now that I know there is another book coming, but that's definitely my biggest frustration with this book. It takes the entire story for anything to actually happen in Nova and Adrian's lives, as well as for anything to happen between them, that I found myself struggling not to skip ahead. Archenemies definitely fell into the dreaded "middle book" syndrome where the novel is more of a bridge between books than a strong story of its own.

Archenemies was a good sequel to Renegades, unfortunately it just didn't live up to the excitement of the first book for me. I'd still recommend this to anyone who has read Renegades and wants to continue the story, because I really think Meyer's is bringing us on a great adventure, but this was definitely the middle book of a series. That said, I liked getting to jump into this hero vs. villain world again and am really excited for the next book (which will hopefully give us a bit more action).

FINAL RATING: 3.5/5