Title: Prodigy (Legend #2)
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile
Publication Date: January 29th, 2013
Page #: 371 (in my ARC, 384 according to Goodreads)
From
Goodreads:
June and Day arrive in Vegas just as the unthinkable
happens: the Elector Primo dies, and his son Anden takes his place. With the
Republic edging closer to chaos, the two join a group of Patriot rebels eager
to help Day rescue his brother and offer passage to the Colonies. They have
only one request—June and Day must assassinate the new Elector.
It’s their chance to change the nation, to give voice to a
people silenced for too long.
But as June realizes this Elector is nothing like his
father, she’s haunted by the choice ahead. What if Anden is a new beginning?
What if revolution must be more than loss and vengeance, anger and blood—what
if the Patriots are wrong?
In this highly-anticipated sequel, Lu delivers a
breathtaking thriller with high stakes and cinematic action.
Prodigy starts off pretty much where Legend left off and
continues from there. The book has a very quick pace to it, and pretty soon
June and Day are thrown into a world of revolutionaries and social unrest. I
really don't want to give away too much of the plot, but even though I was
uncomfortable with the pacing at times I felt like everything fit just where it
should have. The plot putted along at a good pace and never once did I feel
like it was lagging, or that a scene that had been added was just fluff.
My favorite thing about the book was Lu's self-reflection on
June and Day through her secondary characters. I agreed with the opinions that some
of these secondary characters held and was glad to see that they were being
addressed within the novel, that Lu looked at her work and said "This seems like this, does anyone else notice this?"
That's very mature writing on her part, and I enjoyed that aspect. As for those
secondary characters, we meet some old faces from the previous book who fit
nicely into their new roles in Prodigy, along with some new ones that
help to shape the personalities of and highlight the differences between June
and Day further.
The lack of detail that we get of cities and daily life is a
double-edged sword when it comes to dystopian fiction, or any kind of fiction,
really. On one hand, a little more layout detail would have been nice. I had
trouble picturing a few of the fight and flight scenes because I felt like
there wasn’t enough detail to make an accurate mental picture. I often had to
change that picture in my head as I went along.
On the other hand you don't want the characters telling you
a whole lot about where they live because it's normal life for them, and normal
life, no matter how unpleasant, isn’t something that you feel compelled to
describe. I don't think that Lu should be criticized for not showing us every
single chunk of concrete in every city of her novels, even though that's
something that June could certainly share with us.
The ending was heartfelt, and not having another page to
turn after that was difficult for me, but understandable. I thought that the
book ended just fine, and so I'm a little surprised to read in
Lu's FAQ that
the series will be a trilogy. We only get a vague allusion as to what happens
to several characters, one of my favorites among them, which was a little
disappointing for me so I’m hoping that these characters will get some more
solid endings. Where we go from here I really don't know, which makes the
prospect of a third book all that more exciting.
If you've read Legend I would pick up Prodigy
(and if you haven't read Legend, well, that's another thing all
together). I loved getting a chance to peak at the next chapter in the world of
the Republic, and I'm very interested to see what Marie Lu will bring us next!
 |
| Four Stars! |
P.S. There are a TON of spoiler-y things that I would love to discuss with people who have read the book (or, heck, have read
Legend with no intention of reading
Prodigy), so if you want to chat email me at bravenewshelf[at]gmail[dot]com!
And before I forget, there was a little two-sided postcard tucked inside the ARC. Sorry about the harsh light spot in the center:
We've got Day and June advertising the Facebook game based on the series. I've yet to check it out, but I just might and review it later. Day looks a lot different than I pictured him, and towards the end of the book I adopted this as my mental image. I'm assuming June is wearing the military uniform, which I had originally pictured as black. Still, I think they both look awesome, it's always great to see what other people's depictions of characters look like. Thoughts?
Feature and Follow Friday is hosted over at Parajunkee and Allison Can Read. This week's question:
