[Book Review] Archenemies by Marissa Meyer

Synopsis (from Goodreads) :

The Renegades Trilogy continues, in this fiercely awaited second installment after the New York Times-bestselling Renegades by Marissa Meyer, author of the Lunar Chronicles.

Time is running out.

Together, they can save the world.

But they each other's worst nightmare.

In Renegades, Nova and Adrian (aka Insomnia and Sketch) fought the battle of their lives against the Anarchist known as the Detonator. It was a short-lived victory.

The Anarchists still have a secret weapon, one that Nova believes will protect her. The Renegades also have a strategy for overpowering the Anarchists, but both Nova and Adrian understand that it could mean the end of Gatlon City - and the world - as they know it.

My rating : 

4.3/5 stars.

My review :

Archenemies is the second book in Renegades trilogy, and it is written by one of my favorite authors, Marissa Meyer, who has written The Lunar Chronicles series and Heartless, which is absolutely a phenomenon. I picked up the first book, Renegades, with an open heart. But it did not blow my mind away that much. Luckily, Archenemies saved it, even though it still did not give me that much of an impact, to be honest.

To make it a spoiler free review as good as possible, I will try my best to emphasise certain aspects briefly, in order not to spoil anything that is important.

Firstly, the plot or the story line. In my opinion, the plot was interesting, but I did feel like there could be more to it, as I felt the plot was a bit simple for this type of genre. There were scenes where the author successfully gave the suspense aura to them, but still, I did feel like some of them would have actually happened. There were certain parts where I found, predictable. I do hope that the third book will actually be unpredictable. But there were still parts that surprised me, and when I was reading it, I really appreciated the important aspects such as politic, family bonding, etc. that the author emphasised.

Secondly, the world building. When I was reading the book, the world building was a bit slow and boring for me. I almost did not finish this book because of that. Nevertheless, I did see an improvement – in terms of how the world turned out – in this book, hence why I rated it a bit higher than the first one. Still, I spot no huge differences as to encourage me to be blown away by the world. For me, it was understandable, and a bit plain. Perhaps, the world should be expand a bit wider in order to make it even more exciting. When I was reading it, I did not really fancy how the world grew, hence why this book did not receive my five stars.

Thirdly, the characters. From the first book, both main characters – Nova and Adrian – carried double lives on their shoulders. In terms of character improvements, I found Nova’s story as a bit challenging, as she had to stick with her loyalties. Adrian did show more improvements in this book, as I could see how he used his wisdom to the fullest. The minor characters had their own different stories, and overall, I felt like the villains in this book were superb. I think you could clearly see who the real villains were. You have to read the book to find out!

Archenemies was packed with intensity, political issues, and many important aspects. The romance in this book was kind of sequestered away from the story, which is something that I appreciated as I dislike stories that pay too much attention on the romance rather than focusing on the main plot of the story. I will be honest that there were moral values in this book, and I learned so many great things from this one – family bonding, friendship, loyalty, honesty, etc. You wouldn’t miss these in this book!

Overall, I think it was a great read, though I felt like there could be more aspects that should be included to make the story perfect. If you are a fan of Marissa Meyer and you have not read this trilogy yet, I highly recommend you to try this out! If you have read Renegades, then you definitely should read Archenemies to discover more of the Renegades world.

My final rating for this book is 4.3 out of 5 stars. I am recommending this to everyone!