Legend by Marie Lu Review

LEGEND

 by Marie Lu

     ★★★★☆      

      For a long time I have wished to read Legend, mainly because of the reviews and hype surrounding it, but also because of the fact that it's set in a dystopian California landscape, stars a kick-ass heroine, and because there are plenty of fights and explosions throughout (boys love violence!).

      Sounds like a book you've ever heard of? It certainly mimics plenty of elements from Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games, and it certainly will be compared with it, but I didn't really mind some of the same elements being used, because that's what attracted everyone to the Hunger Games initially. I simply think of it as a Hunger Games 2.0, designed by a video game director and set in a post-apocalyptic version of Los Angeles. (Think Romeo and Juliet meets Hunger Games.)

  

      The two main characters in Legend are complete opposites. The first is a teenage-criminal named Day, who has his mom thinking he is dead, and is the most wanted criminal in the Republic. Day grew up in the slum Lake sector (in the future, the poor live in various sectors scattered throughout California, and have jobs like cleaning out turbines.) The crimes Day has committed range from setting fire to multiple air crafts before they went off to war, scaling a 5-foot building in under 8 seconds, and the most recent; breaking into a hospital complex to steal the supposed cure to the plague that had infected his younger brother. Yet out of all these crimes, he has never harmed a single person, until his last "expedition." The next hero of this book is June, who grew up in the richer side of town, in fact, the richest. Every year, the capitol holds a test for every 10 year-old to measure his or her abilities in academics, physicality, and logic. June was the only one in history to have a perfect score of 1500, and for that got assigned to serve under a general. June had always admired Day for his skills in defying the capitol, even though it was looked down upon by everyone around her.Then one day, Day supposedly kills June's brother, Metias, flipping June's world upside-down. The chase that follows is a fun one, and filled with plenty of surprises and interesting twists.

     In Legend, the story is told through the perspective of Day and June. At times, the narration can become extremely tedious, because both of them sound very similar, in both their thoughts and the way that they talk. We get that the two of them are both insanely talented prodigies, but one would think that Day's upbringing in the slum Lake Sector would change his dialect slightly from that of the rich, well brought-up June. (The only apparent attempt was Day's constant usage of the words "Cousin" and "Goddy", which, frankly, started to get really annoying.)

                        

      But despite all that, I really enjoyed this book. I read it in less than 24 hours, and enjoyed every minute of it, minus my only criticism (see above).  The way the story gets tied together is perfect, with June's and Day's narrations intertwining. The characters seemed believable enough, and I thought the setting was described very well, for sometimes the future setting of other novels becomes muddled and confusing, yet Legend avoided that, and stuck to a near future that was believable and not at all over the top.

 Rated:

For 14+

Profanity: (☆) Minor words like damn and hell, yet nothing a 14-year-old can't handle.

Violence: (☆☆☆☆) There is lots of violence, including Day's torture, where he gets beaten up pretty badly, and it is described thoroughly, with graphic images of wounds. There are riot scenes, hospital break-ins, prison break-outs, and more. 

Sexual Content: (☆) Day and June kiss, but nothing more than that.