By J.A. Souders

Publisher: Tor Teen
Publication Date: November 13, 2012
Genre: Young Adult Dystopian
Source: Netgalley

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 little world, she’s forced to come to a startling realization: everything she knows is a lie.

Her memories have been altered.

Her mind and body aren’t under her own control.

And the person she knows as Mother is a monster.

Together with Gavin she plans her escape, only to learn that her own mind is a ticking time bomb… and Mother has one last secret that will destroy them all.

Goodreads Summary

I was seriously leaning-forward, biting-my-lip, holy-crap excited after the second chapter of Renegade started. It was that freaky. Twilight Zone freaky. Then either it – or I – got lost in a disorganized plot that felt padded, even though it had amazing potential.

In an underwater self-sustaining utopia, Evelyn has been groomed as the Daughter of the People since she was practically a toddler, in preparation for her eventual rise to power as Mother to the people of Elysium. Mother is all-powerful and rules with a platinum fist, creating and carrying out justice, deciding couplings and generally being freakishly terrifying. What Evelyn doesn’t know is that her life is deliberately almost perfect.

Elysium was founded when war broke out and a group led by Mother decided they needed to find a new place to live apart from the violence and disorder. Surface Dwellers are considered dirty scumbags, pollutants and definitely not allowed in Elysium. So Gavin, the one Evelyn finds and is fascinated by, becomes a problem for Mother. Understatement. For once, something in her resists Conditioning and she risks everything to help him escape execution. And that’s when things just went haywire for me.

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