Review: Archenemies

Archenemies by Marissa Meyer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

*sees the cover*

*SCREAMS IN FANBOY*

My favorite cover of 2018. Hands down. No question. Period.
As for the book behind the cover, it's a bit of a comedown from the first book of the Renegades trilogy. Don't you just find it annoying when Middle Book Syndrome happens? It's a shame, because there's a lot of good material to go around here in Archenemies. The continuing saga of Nova and Adrian and their star-crossed secret villain, secret hero love. Hell, just the sheer level of mind-gamery they have to play to keep their secrets from each other and all the rest of those in the Renegades, who, at least, we now know to not be quite as virtuous as their publicity would have you believe. Therein lies Marissa Meyer's continued deconstruction of both superheroes and super-romance.

Surprisingly, for being significantly shorter than the first book, this one's actually a little slower to read. Likely because of how much it deals with the aforementioned mind games, and maybe it has a little something to do with me having to deal with a lot of IRL crap at the time of my reading. But still, I was really hoping for this one to be much more of a "read in one sitting" breeze.

Still, though. Archenemies is nothing short of intelligent and cerebral, well-deserving of its place on the bestseller list. And that cliffhanger, it's bloody Aveyardian in the style of King's Cage. I won't be forgetting it anytime soon, that's for damn sure.

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