Legend by Marie Lu
I'm not usually one for dystopian future novels, but I'm always willing to give them a shot now and then. “Who knows? Maybe this one will be awesome!” says I.
Legend takes place in a totalitarian regime that seems to have replaced at least some of the United States. Centering around June, the genius darling of the military class, and Day, a sneak thief who's trying to help his proletariat family out. Day has one of his heists go horribly wrong, resulting in the death of June's brother and now she has to hunt him down. Stuff happens.
The first thing I noticed was the first person, present tense narration that switches off every chapter between June and Day. Now first person using one perspective is tricky enough and it triples if one decides to use present tense narration. My general expectation is to know the narrating character extremely well and any action scenes to be really intense. Due to the switching back and forth between two perspectives, I found that the narrative never really attained the character closeness I wanted and expected from it.
This might very well be a result of me being older than the target audience, jaded and convinced of my overall average-ness, but did not like June as a character at all. She stood on a single perfect test score like it was the most important thing in the universe and she would not stop harping on about it. This wasn't helped by the military people around her also making a big fuss about her oh-so-specialness. From my perspective, the truly clever and interesting one was June's murdered brother Metias. Since he's the one who figured out what was going on with the regime and why long before June even had cause for doubt. It really undermined her presentation as “the prodigy” of that family.
Day was a little better since “smart kid that the government discarded” is far less annoying than “spoiled prodigy” to me. Jumpy writing style aside, I found him to be a little bit better, if only because I think hidden smarts are sometimes more effective than the genius everyone knows about. Also, I liked the interaction between him and his friend/sometime partner Tess. Since he isn't supposedly “the best of the cream of the crop” the dialog between Day and Tess seemed more normal. Or rather it was as normal as it could be given that both of them were living outside the law and stealing things to get by.
I would have liked to seen more detail of the broader political scene as it does (at least theoretically) take place in my home state. I would have dearly loved to have seen more of the resistance forces that crop up wherever totalitarianism rears its ugly head. However, since the story is locked into that weirdly remote first person/present tense narrative and neither character is really all that interested in any resistance factions, any organized rebel angle gets glossed over for the most part.
This really makes me sad because I actually do enjoy a good dystopian future novel on occasion, but this one just wasn't doing it for me. I also know beyond doubt that first person present tense is one I adore when done with a certain sense of visceral-ness. I just didn't find either in this book.
Legend takes place in a totalitarian regime that seems to have replaced at least some of the United States. Centering around June, the genius darling of the military class, and Day, a sneak thief who's trying to help his proletariat family out. Day has one of his heists go horribly wrong, resulting in the death of June's brother and now she has to hunt him down. Stuff happens.
The first thing I noticed was the first person, present tense narration that switches off every chapter between June and Day. Now first person using one perspective is tricky enough and it triples if one decides to use present tense narration. My general expectation is to know the narrating character extremely well and any action scenes to be really intense. Due to the switching back and forth between two perspectives, I found that the narrative never really attained the character closeness I wanted and expected from it.
This might very well be a result of me being older than the target audience, jaded and convinced of my overall average-ness, but did not like June as a character at all. She stood on a single perfect test score like it was the most important thing in the universe and she would not stop harping on about it. This wasn't helped by the military people around her also making a big fuss about her oh-so-specialness. From my perspective, the truly clever and interesting one was June's murdered brother Metias. Since he's the one who figured out what was going on with the regime and why long before June even had cause for doubt. It really undermined her presentation as “the prodigy” of that family.
Day was a little better since “smart kid that the government discarded” is far less annoying than “spoiled prodigy” to me. Jumpy writing style aside, I found him to be a little bit better, if only because I think hidden smarts are sometimes more effective than the genius everyone knows about. Also, I liked the interaction between him and his friend/sometime partner Tess. Since he isn't supposedly “the best of the cream of the crop” the dialog between Day and Tess seemed more normal. Or rather it was as normal as it could be given that both of them were living outside the law and stealing things to get by.
I would have liked to seen more detail of the broader political scene as it does (at least theoretically) take place in my home state. I would have dearly loved to have seen more of the resistance forces that crop up wherever totalitarianism rears its ugly head. However, since the story is locked into that weirdly remote first person/present tense narrative and neither character is really all that interested in any resistance factions, any organized rebel angle gets glossed over for the most part.
This really makes me sad because I actually do enjoy a good dystopian future novel on occasion, but this one just wasn't doing it for me. I also know beyond doubt that first person present tense is one I adore when done with a certain sense of visceral-ness. I just didn't find either in this book.