Prodigy | Book Review

Prodigy by Marie Lu

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Color Me: Sequelly Satisfied. I consumed Legend in one breath last year. I loved it (but that was before I got tired of YA dystopias... Ah those were the days...). So I was thrilled to see Prodigy hit the shelves three months ago. And then...I got bored. And then I got excited. And ultimately, I was very pleased with this sequel.

Writing Technique: ★★★ Lu writes like a video game Flash artist (which she is...). Her style is very straight forward, visual, and simple. I like it. It works for this story. I have nothing overly negative or positive to say about it.

Plot/Story Development: ★★★★ I spent the first half of this book bored to tears. It was all like "We're going to do this. Then we're gonna do that." And I was like "Can we please just get to that?!" But somewhere in the middle, things started happening and that was exciting. I like the whole Republic v. The Colonies v. The Patriots v. The People v. whatever storyline. But I'll say that while the story progressed significantly, not a lot happened (if that makes sense). We got from A to B, but there were only a couple stops along the way. That may not be a bad thing. But it made the story seem somewhat simple (despite all the conspiracy stuff going on).

Character Development: ★★★ Day has been a rebel without a cause for most of his life. He's been a one-man army with tunnel vision. This book, he has to learn to play with others. But choosing which others-which cause-is the real struggle. His idealism is challenged and he has to figure out what he wants, what he can do, and what is actually possible for the people. His is a four-star character arc. June's arc is much less tangible. Her almost super-human powers of observation mean she just has to trust her gut and be brave enough to follow through. She gets two generous stars in this department. They balance out to a three.

(Random side note: I don't get why the characters here are so young. June and Day are 15. 15?! I'm trying to suspend my disbelief. But mostly I just have to imagine they're 17 or 18 or 19 or 20... My brother is 16, and I can't imagine him leading a revolution ((as more than just a mascot)), taking a powerful position in government, be in True Love, or pretty much any of the things these kids are supposed to do...)

Message/Theme: ★★★★1/2 loyalty, betrayal, rebellion, enemies, allies, friendship, love, and the many faces of oppression...

Rating: PG/PG-13 for violence and mild language

Overall: ★★★★ A good solid sequel. I'm curious about where we'll go in the third and final--seriously why is everything a trilogy nowadays?! There are other numbers out there besides 3. There's 4 and 5 and 7 and a bunch of others...--book.



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