Review: Legend by Marie Lu

Legend (Legend #1) by Marie Lu

Pages: 368 Release Date: February 2nd 2012 Publisher: Penguin Source: Review

Goodreads:

he United States is gone, along with its flooded coasts. North America's two warring nations, the western Republic and the eastern Colonies, have reached a breaking point. In the midst of this broken continent and dark new world are two teenagers who will go down in history....

Born into the slums of Los Angeles, fifteen-year old Day is the country's most wanted criminal. A mysterious boy with no recorded image or fingerprints. A boy who should no longer exist. A boy who watches over his family until one evening, when the plague patrols mark his family's door with an X--the sign of plague infection. A death sentence for any family too poor to afford the antidote. Desperate, Day has no choice; he must steal it.

Born to an elite family in Los Angeles' wealthy Ruby sector, fifteen-year old June is the Republic's most promising prodigy. A superintelligent girl destined for great things in the country's highest military circles. Obedient, passionate, and committed to her country--until the day her brother Metias is murdered while on patrol during a break-in at the plague hospital.

Only one person could be responsible.

Day.

And now it's June's mission to hunt him down.

The truth they'll uncover will become legend.

My Review:

I definitely fell in love with Legend from the very first page. It’s one of the best books that I’ve read in a long long time! It is up there with the likes of Divergent in my opinion!

Day and June are such interesting characters to read about. I couldn’t get enough of them! June has the ‘perfect’ trial score and lives in the nicest areas, whilst Day is the criminal that nobody is able to catch. It was interesting how both their individual stories were brought together and I thought it was really clever.

June deals with a lot of real emotion throughout the story as it progresses, such as grievance, loss, love and friendship. Day was equally dealing with some of the same emotions and this made the characters feel a lot more real. Some of the scenes are seriously heartbreaking, so beware :) There were of course characters that I hated, but there’s always one. How they are revealed is especially good as it is not someone who you might suspect. I enjoyed reading about Tess! She seemed really lovely and everyone who you meet along the way all adds something interesting to the mix.

The narrative is split into Day and June’s different perspectives and I really enjoyed how it was set in different fonts to make their personalities jump out from the page. There were numerous amounts of twists and turns that made this book unputdownable! I was shocked one page, laughing the next, it was so good. I literally devoured this book! I enjoyed how the whole new world structure was portrayed, it was very believable and I think that’s very important when writing a dystopian novel.

I don’t think I can stress how good this book is, seriously. It’s just simply amazing! I think you should read it right now if you love dystopians, romance, suspense, action! This book has it all and will not disappoint!

5 out of 5 stars overall.