Review: The Rise of Renegade X by Chelsea Campbell

Apr 16, 2011 by shanyn

Title: The Rise of Renegade X
Hardcover, 352 pages
Author: Chelsea Campbell
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Publication Date: May 11, 2010
Source: Book Expo America
Buy: Amazon

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Book Summary:
Sixteen-year-old Damien Locke has a plan: major in messing with people at the local supervillain university and become a professional evil genius, just like his supervillain mom. But when he discovers the shameful secret she’s been hiding all these years, that the one-night stand that spawned him was actually with a superhero, everything gets messed up. His father’s too moral for his own good, so when he finds out Damien exists, he actually wants him to come live with him and his goody-goody superhero family. Damien gets shipped off to stay with them in their suburban hellhole, and he has only six weeks to prove he’s not a hero in any way, or else he’s stuck living with them for the rest of his life, or until he turns eighteen, whichever comes first.

To get out of this mess, Damien has to survive his dad’s “flying lessons” that involve throwing him off the tallest building in the city–despite his nearly debilitating fear of heights–thwarting the eccentric teen scientist who insists she’s his sidekick, and keeping his supervillain girlfriend from finding out the truth. But when Damien uncovers a dastardly plot to turn all the superheroes into mindless zombie slaves, a plan hatched by his own mom, he discovers he cares about his new family more than he thought. Now he has to choose: go back to his life of villainy and let his family become zombies, or stand up to his mom and become a real hero.

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Review:
I love that the plot of The Rise of Renegade X deals with heroes and villains. It’s a topic that has not been done (at least in the books I’ve read), so it was a welcome break from some of the paranormal I’ve been reading lately.

When children turn 16 in Chelsea Campbell’s fictional world, they receive a V or H thumbprint, declaring them a hero or villain forever. It’s a genetic thing, so you normally know what you are far ahead of time – but poor Renegade X ends up having an X, meaning he has a mix of both hero and villain genes.

The book is spent with Renegade X and his quest to become a villain like his mom. Those that receive X’s eventually turn to V’s or H’s depending on their behavior in the years after the X, so Renegade X is constantly thinking about what he’s doing and how it will affect his future V or H status.

I had a lot of fun reading this one. The characters were all fun, especially because they all have a special super power. The world they live in is also very entertaining because heroes and villains are constantly battling each other, and it’s just the way it is in the world, very casual and nonchalant. A fun read about a different kind of topic.

Buy: Amazon

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