Review: Legend

Legend by Marie Lu

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Soooo, it's hardly news that I'm into young adult dystopian novels, even though most of them tend to disappoint me. This one didn't! Not because the dystopia/world is unique or anything: it doesn't really have any semi-magical elements for the main characters to figure out, and is just about a bad government being mean to the poor parts of the population.

Yes, there is a sorting ceremony/test-thingy that pretty much all YA dystopians have these days, but it's not actually part of the stor? The two main characters have left the test well behind them at the start of the story, which was a nice change. And there's nothing magical about it either, it's just a standarized test to see if you're smart and will fit into the community.

Oh, and notice how there's main characterS, as in PLURAL. Yeah, it's not just a sixteen year-old heroine getting thrown into a new situation (though I love that shit), it's a guy and a girl with very different backgrounds. One is the most wanted criminal and have lived in poverty most of his life, and the other is a privileged and rich government employee (or military employee even?). It's interesting to see their different views, and it's not even necessary with different fonts to distinguish between their narratives. Which is a good thing, of course.

What I didn't like was the romance. I'm not buying how quickly they fall for each other, AT ALL, and I would've preferred just some subtle hints and then seeing it develop over the coming novels. Now it just seems like they are attracted to each other and for that reason they trust and like each other enough to pretty much go against everything they believe in. Yeeaaah, no. That's gonna crash and burn.

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True story.