4. Legend-ary?

The book:  Legend (Legend #1)
The author:  Marie Lu
The rating:  4 stars

"There are dozens of them out there," he snaps.  "You'll never make it."

I just wink at him.

Legend, much like Cinder, is a book that I've walked past at the 'popular' YA section of the bookstore thousands of times, and for some reason never opted to pick up.  Back before I read Cinder this summer, I thought that cyborg-Cinderella story sounded unpromising, despite the many gushing reviews I read or recommendations I received.  However, a university bookstore with a meager supply of YA fiction for sale pushes a girl to her limits, and I soon found Cinder to be one of my favourite reads of this year.  After having misjudged Cinder so grievously, I figured I'd do well to give Legend a shot too.

Now for the title question:  was Legend legend-ary?  No, not really.  It was a good read, though--one that had me shoving my other commitments aside (like studying for a certain chemistry exam) to indulge in Lu's comfortable prose and witty characters.

That was definitely a highlight for me:  both of Lu's protagonists are extremely intelligent and capable, and unlike so many authors, she writes smart characters that have more of a personality than being 'the smart one'.  I'll admit, June irked me for pretty much the entire first half of the book.  Her 'extraordinary' intelligence seemed to amount to nothing more than an ability to perform half-baked Sherlock Holmes-style scans of the situation, but as she began to break out of the whole 'good-little-soldier' mould she grew considerably more tolerable.  That said, the standout for me is definitely Day.  Steetwise and savvy, his intelligence was something that was constantly shown, not told.  Reading from his perspective was always a pleasure; he was someone so tactical, so deliberating, yet with such a strong sense of loyalty at odds with that calculating side of him.  He's your classic loveable rogue, but Lu makes him more than just an archetype; he's truly compelling.  Yes, I may just have a wee literary crush on Daniel Altan Wing, but moving on...

I was also pleasantly surprised by Legend's supporting characters.  Quite often in a trilogy-opener like this everyone except the protagonist and their love interest(s) seem to be underdeveloped, but I found Lu's treatment of her supporting characters to be quite skillful, particularly with Tessa and Kaede.  Sure, Day's family may be used a bit too exclusively as plot devices (don't get me started about John), but all in all I found the character roster to be happily well-rounded.

The world building... has potential.  I wasn't exactly thrilled with how it's been handled so far, but as only the first in a trilogy, I'm optimistic that my opinion on this will improve over the next two installments.  As a connoisseur of dystopian and science fiction, I've formulated a theory.  90% of far-flung futures have one of two histories between our present day and theirs:  1)  There's been a massive conflict between superpowers China and the United States, with varying results (in Firefly they unite; in The Selection, China takes over the US; in Legend, the US apparently has taken over China) or 2)  No country remains in existence except a future-version of the United States (Hunger Games, Whispers in Autumn, etc).  I call this theory the "Americans Believe they are Better than Everyone" Theory; bonus points are awarded if it's mentioned that everywhere north of future-USA is now flooded (authors love flooding Canada), or has been annexed.  This is going on a bit of a tangent, but the point is that I didn't find Lu's worldbuilding to be anything special.  A futuristic class system that is a thinly veiled commentary on today's societal structure; your obligatory 'the government is EVIL' conspiracy that is kind of needed to put the 'dys' in 'dystopia'; the occasional injection of FutureTech; some good old 'Big Brother is Watching You'...  For a dystopian fan, it's an enjoyable enough formula, but nothing that hasn't been done countless times before.

All in all, Legend was more than okay.  Day was everything I look for in a good protagonist and the plot has potential, even if it is your standard government-conspiracy with the heroes on the run.  The book's sequel, Prodigy may have just jumped to the top of my to-read list.