Prodigy by Marie Lu
I had no idea what I expected from the follow up of Legend. In some ways, I thought that I would be blown away and taken for a ride that would be the fallout of a government. I was also scared that I may not enjoy the second trip into this world after reading The Young Elites. Instead, I was taken on a ride that was different than I expected, but was very enjoyable.
The one major issue I found with the story was that it suffered the same problem that the first suffered with, but to a lesser degree. The story picked up a bit quicker, but it felt like it took a while to reconcile and get them going. In the mean time, we were forced to rely on their personalities to get them through. On one hand, Day is easy to relate to. June on the other hand is so overly analytic it is hard to get close to her. However as she was thrown in over her head, she begins to warm up again. June is at her best when she can’t cope with a situation.
The plot of the story wasn’t as earth shattering or Republic shaking like I thought it would be. Instead of trying to end the Republic government we ultimately got a plot in which in which they tried to alter the Republic government. It worked rather effectively, though I did find myself expecting the worst and it turned out to not be quite as bad.
Here’s the thing, while I kept expecting things to get phenomenally worse they didn’t, but it kept me guessing and it kept me interested. I could not put the book down by the time I hit the midway point. Everything would seem to get better before they would spiral out of control. When I read a book like this, I like the feeling of losing myself in pages not realizing how deep I’ve fallen into the well. The story did that for me even if I did find myself repeatedly noticing when the writing wasn’t that great. I didn’t care. I wanted to read more.
I have to give it to Marie Lu for getting me to invest so much into the relationship between Day and June despite them not being together for a long stretch of the novel. It was impressive considering I was constantly reminded of why the two of them shouldn’t work. They were thrust into other relationships that seemed more suited to them. It was ultimately their devotion and subconscious desire to help each other at their own expense. Sure, they needed a lot to build their relationship to make it solid, to make it real. However, I connected their that relationship and that is what matters.
That said, a curveball was thrown at the end that truly separated Day from June. It was an effective twist as I never would have seen it coming. However, I’m not sure where the twist is really going. I’ll have to wait and see what happens in the next book.
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