An Un-Calibrated Centrifuge

I was initially intrigued by Legend by Marie Lu because it was 1) written by an Asian author and 2) has two main characters of color (Day is half Asian, and Marie Lu has stated that June is mostly Native American).

That said, all dystopian novels have started to look alike to me. There was one thing that stood out to me about Legend, but all in all it was pretty average. My main complaint is that the two main characters June and Day sound too much like each other. The story is told from their points of view in alternating chapters. Each character’s chapters are clearly labeled with their names, written in different fonts, even the fonts are different colors. So visually, it’s very easy to tell which character you are reading. Voice-wise it’s harder. They think alike and have all the same skills. They do come from different backgrounds, but that doesn’t really seem highlight any differences between them in any drastic ways.

Apparently Marie Lu originally wrote June as a boy, but changed the character's sex/gender to make the story work better. I’m wondering how the story would have turned out if she had made Day a girl too. (She has stated on her website that the romance storyline would have remained the same no matter what the sexes/genders of the main characters were.)

Legend did avoid one common pet peeve of mine. Often times in these dystopian novels the author offers an info dump at the very beginning of the book. The main character sits down in the first few chapters and gives the readers a history lesson on the world that he or she lives in. At best this lecture just happens, the character tells you what you want to know about the dystopia and then the story starts. At worst the author contrives some ridiculous reason to give you a history lesson on their made up world, and they end up giving you tons of irrelevant information.

Marie Lu doesn’t explain as much as I’d like in Legend. I’m still extremely fuzzy on exactly what’s the Republic and what the Colonies are. She reveals enough information as the story moves along, so you can understand what’s immediately happening even if you don’t understand all the reasons for or behind the action. I am hoping that as the series goes along, the entire history of the Republic and the Colonies are revealed.

I wasn’t thrilled with this read, but I think it was good enough to give the sequel a try.