Genre: Young Adult Dystopian
LEGEND By Marie Lu
This was one of those books that started so good I wanted to read it slowly and savor it. I was also afraid that it wouldn’t hold up to the outstanding beginning, but it did! The plot, the characters, the world, the voice, they were all perfect! I loved it all! (Molly, tone down the fangirl…)
Day is fifteen and the most wanted person in the Republic. He’s guilty of numerous crimes, including theft, breaking into military bases and blowing up jets, but he never hurts anyone. He lives on the streets with a little girl named Tess and secretly watches over his family who believes him to be dead. At the start of Legend the plague has spread to the poor Lake sector where his family lives.
June is also fifteen. At ten every child takes the trial and the results decide what their lives will be like. Where Day failed his test June did more than pass, she’s the only one ever to get a perfect 1500 score. She lives with her brother, a captain in the military (their parents are dead) and goes to the top academy in the country. She’s always getting in trouble for her outrageous stunts; her latest was scaling a sky scraper to see how fast she could do it. (Copying something that Day’s known for.)
The characters are both similar people, even though they’ve led very different lives. They’re both really smart and talented, but in different ways. June is the kind of person who notices every detail and kicks butt in a fight and Day is great at making complicated plans and leaping about on buildings. The story is told from both points of view and I rarely confused the two of them.
In a Dystopian there usually comes a time when the main character realizes what kind of a world they really live in. Day already knows how terrible the government is, but June buys the propaganda. She’s told the truth, but she also figures it out for herself and as such it’s more gradual and realistic for her to totally change her beliefs.
The world the author created is rich and I could really picture it in my head, from June’s fancy apartment to the streets of the Lake Sector.
Legend is a unique Dystopian and my favorite so far!
9/10 Stars!
PRODIGY
Prodigy was almost as good as Legend. Everything wrapped up so wall it felt like the final book of the trilogy not the second. I’m glad they were all released otherwise I would’ve been screaming for the next one. Though things wrapped up, not everything was happily ever after.
At the start of Prodigy I liked both June and Day, but I had no feelings whatsoever about whether they wound up together or not. By the end I was like, NO!! They’re meant to be! (Whispers otp. Molly your fangirl is showing)
Some of the dialogue to catch readers up felt a bit forced, but this was only at the beginning.
I enjoyed learning how the Republic started, that’s the one thing I was wondering about while reading Legend. (We also learned about the Colonies and a bit about the world at large.)
The side characters were better fleshed out and we were introduced to a couple of new characters in the Patriots. (The group who fights against the Republic.) After reading dystopians I automatically distrust everyone the characters meet.
8/10 Stars
CHAMPION
As much as I wanted to read this book, I was afraid to. So many dystopians don’t end happily. (Especially the popular ones, what’s up with that?)
In Champion the war with the Colonies has accelerated and the Patriots are back along with Tess. We also got to see Antarctica, which was cool! (And there could so be another dystopian set from there.)
Talk about a roller coaster ride of emotions! I didn’t like the entire story line with Day. In my opinion it wasn’t necessary and took away from the story.
THE END: Though it’s probably considered a happy ending, I wasn’t happy. The epilogue ten years later tries to fix things, but it felt like too little too late. I think I’ll pretend it ended happily after prodigy.
8/10 Stars
What did you read this week?
