Legend (Legend Trilogy, #1)

by Marie Lu

[nannah]

Ugh, I was so prepared to like this one.
I'd seen it it praised by all my friends on here, it was always checked out at the library and praised there, and the MC has a bad knee! What YA (especially dystopian) actually has main characters that are anything but in perfect physical condition?

And though the pace was altogether pretty good, I really didn't like much else about it. I'm not really sure what the plot was, to be honest--at least one that makes sense for both characters and both their POVs.

So Day needs meds for his brother, who is sick with the plague. Ok. The other character, June, is on this revenge thing to actually kill Day, which connects them, but like . . . the overall plot really isn't clear. What is the main motivation to keep reading? What are the real life consequences if these characters fail (other than Day's brother dying and June not getting satisfaction, because these weren't given incredible importance. As a reader, I'm not made to care about these plots all that much, so they don't seem to be top priority). The actual plot seems to come much later, which makes it seem too large for a book like this. As if the MCs plots are too personal for something of that scope--the whole Republic! Colonies! plot and the plague conspiracy--which is easy to spot 100 pages before the characters do. I'm not sure why YA dystopias feel like they need to be so grand, but here it just doesn't seem to work.

The book is written in alternating POVs (June and Day), but they sound exactly the same (with the exception of a few made-up slang words on Day's part). That's probably the reason they're typed in different fonts. Actually, they really are even more alike than that, since they're pretty much perfect in every way: both gorgeous, both ridiculously intelligent, and pretty much flaw-free. Day's bad knee doesn't actually count if it's only mentioned in convenient moments and doesn't stop him from scaling buildings, running faster than everyone else, and doing other unbelievable stunts. God forbid the young adult audience has characters with flaws. But no, characters with flaws -- especially visual flaws -- are Chiangs. You know, the dudes with scars down their faces and the prosthetic legs that are in about 10 pages but are there to be menacing, sexually harass the female MC, and be generally disgusting.

However, this book also had mixed-raced protags, too, so you win some, you lose some.

But generally, it feels like this book was written from a really detailed outline. The author went through all the ticked boxes and plot points she needed to get the story to make some sense, but it still doesn't do enough. It's still missing something. Most major twists come from characters thinking, not an actual event, and it just -- again, it just doesn't seem enough.