I was disappointed. Possibly because I loved the first one so much and was expecting something equally fabulous and it didn't quite deliver. I liked Legend so much because it felt fresh and new and different. You know how trends are. Harry Potter came out and made it big and suddenly wherever you turned there was a book about a kid realizing he was really a wizard. Then Twilight came out and everything was about falling in love with some supernatural creature and the issues that come with that. Then The Hunger Games came out and you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a book about how it's the future and everything sucks but one kid will rise above it.
And as I was hitting the peak of dystopia fatigue I read Legend and loved it. Prodigy did not keep the fresh new feel. In Prodigy, Day reluctantly joins the Patriots, who are trying to create a rebellion against the Republic. They want Day because people see him as the symbol of revolution and the fight against the Republic. All Day wants is to get his little brother back safe and run away with him and June to the Colonies. He reluctantly becomes the Patriot's symbol to make this happen. Sound familiar? Yeah, straight up Hunger Games. Hardly anything is different, just a reversal in gender roles.
I continue to like and be interested in June. She's a great character, although we didn't get to see a whole lot of change or growth in her. Actually, there wasn't a whole lot of new information given in the book at all. We got to learn more about how the Trails started, but we still don't know what's going on with the disease experimentation or why they saw Day as such a threat, which was one of the big questions from the first book. We didn't get to learn anymore about June's brother or what her parent's were up to.
I did like getting to see how the rest of the world views the Republic. Inside the Republic, they seem so all-powerful, but outside, they're just a small rogue country. I liked that a lot. Both Day and June were shocked to learn this. I also liked how the Colonies were not the golden utopia Day had always pictured. There are plenty of issues there too, which leads to Day and June's ultimate decision about whether they'll help the Patriots overthrow the Republic or not.
Marie Lu is a new author and is coming off a huge success from Legend, which I'm sure is super stressful, so hopefully she'll find her freshness again in the third one.
Prodigy comes out January 29, 2013.
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