Legend #1
By: Marie Lu
“If you want to rebel, rebel from inside the system.That’s much more powerful than rebelling outside the system.”
Legend
*This post contains spoilers for Legend
Overview:
What was once the western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with its neighbors.
Legend
Born into an elite family in one of the Republic’s wealthiest districts, fifteen-year-old June is a prodigy being groomed for success in the Republic’s highest military circles.
Born into the slums, fifteen-year-old Day is the country’s most wanted criminal. But his motives may not be as malicious as they seem.
From very different worlds, June and Day have no reason to cross paths – until the day June’s brother, Metias, is murdered and Day becomes the prime suspect.
Caught in the ultimate game of cat and mouse, Day is in a race for his family’s survival, while June seeks to avenge Metias’s death. But in a shocking turn of events, the two uncover the truth of what has really brought them together, and the sinister lengths their country will go to keep its secrets.
The themes of this book work really well. Dystopian, class based society, mysterious plague…all great.
The plague is the item that really intrigues me. No one really knows much about it and how it spreads but they just accept it as a regular occurrence. The wealthier neighborhoods rarely ever have outbreaks and the poorer ones have all the cases. Very little is revealed in this book about the plague except that it is clearly not random and was manufactured by The Republic. What is the actual endgame of it? We won’t find out till later in the series.
I also thought that it was interesting that the Republic is not the only government currently operating in what was once The United States. The Republic makes it look like the other factions are wrong and need to be conquered but the citizens don’t seem to know why. Somehow the Republic has convinced everyone to follow orders and just accept what they say is true. I think it will be really interesting to see where the story goes.
Interestingly enough, I don’t like regular military stories but dystopian versions I really enjoy. I’m not sure what it is exactly but there is something about a well thought out fictional system. Legend is no exception. The testing to get in that is found to be rigged to the hierarchy one must navigate.
Now for what I did not find as sucessful.
Perhaps this is due to the fact that I am not a young teenager reading these books but this story would have benefited from aging up the characters. 1`5 is entirely too young for this to be believable. When I first started reading I thought June was graduating a college type program early due to her being this prodigy. Finding out that she was 15 really took me out of it. It just does not seem likely that the Republic would not want to train people a lot longer than their early teens before giving them very important military jobs.
Day being 15 also doesn’t make a ton of sense. He is supposed to have accomplished several acts of rebellion and established himself as a long time enemy of the Republic.
I know with these stories it is supposed to relate to young readers and they are supposed to be inspired by characters their age but you can only stretch so far.
Overall,
I enjoyed the story. I have never read anything from Marie Lu and I think she is a great story teller and writes in an interesting way. Jumping from June to Day’s point of view but not repeating scenes moved the story forward with different perspectives. I also enjoyed the way she handled flashbacks. Sometimes flashbacks can feel out of place and take away from the story but she blended them in well with just enough of the info that we needed.
While I do think that characters could have benefited from being a few years older the story was a fresh take on a dystopian United States. I look forward to reading the rest of the series.
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
