Legend #1
The United States has split into what is the Republic of America consisting of the western half, and the Colonies, making up the eastern half. It’s essentially the civil war again but instead of North and South, it’s East and West and instead of slaves it’s about land about the floods. Oh, and they have modern technology. In this book, much of the world is underwater from The Floods, most likely from the rising of sea levels from Global Warming, further enhanced by all the crazy weather. From what was once the United States, the Republic of America is ruled by a ruthless dictator who makes it painful for the vast majority of people to live.
We first meet Day, a fifteen year old boy who is the most wanted criminal in the country for a number of crimes against the republic. There is a trial that everyone takes when they are ten. Supposedly Day failed his trial, when in fact he scored a perfect score of 1500, but he doesn’t know that, the people doesn’t know that, but then we meet June.
June’s brother was supposedly killed by Day, and when she goes to find him, she sees not a cruel murderer, but someone who kind and gentle and she can’t help but be drawn to him. June then uncovers a series of lies told by the Republic in that Day didn’t kill her brother and the Republic is not some sort of glorious country but one that kills people on mass for getting rid of ‘weak genes.’
The two who are just so beautifully perfect fall for each other and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, cliché much. I get it that’s a YA, but the two main protagonists, June and Day and their whole romance is extremely clichéd and quite bad, not to mention quite rushed, but teenage hormones maybe? Both characters are extremely exquisite for their sex with athletic bodies, both being top prodigies having scored perfect scores, it’s kinda between, aww that’s so sweet, they belong together, and eww, did that just happen? There’s a part where June describes Day’s perfect face and white teeth.
Look, I didn’t have very high expectations for this book, another standard YA dystopian/fantasy with clichè romances and scenes just like the Hunger Games. But hey, it managed to surprise me, I guess or maybe I just like teenagers characters who are just awesome and badass, filled with stuff that you just want to scream at the characters of something the reader already knows but the characters doesn’t, which I found did not really get on my nerves as there was a part that stayed hidden, so that I did not know the full story.
Another thing that I did find was that it’s length. Being just under three hundred pages, it’s not exactly long, in fact quite short, so I initially believed that it wouldn’t contain much in character development or bonding, but rather sequences of fast paced chase/fight scenes and I was proved wrong, which was good. Then again, it is YA and I understand authors have to keep it to a certain number of words to keep teens attention these days. Despite its length, I was thoroughly engaged and enjoyed the world building immensely.
As it is based on a retelling of Les Misérables and as that is one of my favourite classics and books in general, I kept thinking about which character is who and here is my verdict. Day is Jean Valjean, as he committed crimes and such, but also a bit of Marius, falling in love with Cosette. June, I am saying is Cosette and them meeting and talking in the prison is very much like them talking in the garden in Les Mis. Thomas is undoubtably Inspector Javert, I think. Day’s family is much like Marius’s family, and Metias would have been some sort of Fantine.
A problem was that I had listened to the first quarter of the book on an audiobook, and I much rather read than listen, so I found the first few dozen pages to be boring, though the fault lies in the audiobook, after that though, the rest was all really enjoyable. Now I just need to get my hands on the rest of the trilogy, when I can. Solid 8.5/10, would be higher without the clichéd scenes and the predictability throughout the book.
