Wilder - Book Review

By Rebecca Yarros

Synopsis

He’s Paxton Wilder.

Twenty-two-year-old, tattooed, smoking-hot leader of the Renegades.

Five time X Games medalist.

The world is his playground—especially this year—and for the next nine months I’m stuck as his tutor on the Study at Sea program.

He’s too busy staging worldwide stunts for his documentary to get to class.

But if I can’t get him to take academics seriously, I’ll lose my scholarship…if I don’t lose my heart first.

Six unlikely friends on a nine-month cruise with the Study at Sea program will learn that chemistry is more than a subject and the best lessons aren’t taught in the classroom…but in the heart.

Review

I enjoyed WILDER and thought it was a great start to a new series from Rebecca Yarros. In this series we have a trio of adrenaline junkies⎯Wilder (Pax), Nova (Landon) and Rebel (Penna)⎯who are the Renegades. They’re taking a year off competing in order to finish college, but will film a documentary showcasing all their crazy stunts performed around the world while they spend the school year at sea. Because of his busy schedule, Pax needs a tutor to help him graduate, and Leah has been chosen for him.

Leah is recovering from a traumatic event and just getting on the ship is the craziest and bravest thing she’s done in two years. On her first day, she meets Pax and is thrown into a situation that terrifies her. But she’s strong and brave and handles it like a champ. She would normally never consider doing the crazy things that Pax does, but he makes her want to step out of her comfort zone and live a little. I liked that while she thinks about her traumatic past, she doesn’t use it as a reason not to be with Pax. Pax is cocky and arrogant, but he’s also a nice guy who would do anything for those he cares about. He’s also haunted by a traumatic event for which he blames himself for, but it’s not his fault at all. He’s determined to graduate college, gain access to his trust fund and finish the documentary to honour a friend.

There was one thing I didn’t like about the story, and that was how many times Pax and Leah’s “secrets” were alluded to before finally being revealed. Leah’s traumatic event. Pax hiding something from Leah. Pax being the cause of Nova’s man-whore ways. They were talked or thought about so many times that by the time the secrets were revealed, they weren’t shocking because they’d become easy to predict, and that was disappointing. But other than that, I liked the story and it’s characters, and I am looking forward to reading Nova’s books next, which comes out in February 2017. WILDER is told in dual POVs and is the first book in The Renegades series. It doesn’t end with a cliffhanger and comes with a HEA for Pax and Leah, who I’m sure we’ll see again throughout the series.