Prodigy

Prodigy is Marie Lu's follow up to Legend, a popular teen novel set in a dystopian future where the United States is no longer united due in large part to…. global warming. On the West coast we have the Republic, and on the East coast, the Colonies; these halves have been at war for a very long time (Lu's kind of fuzzy on that, but I think it was supposed to be the generic 100 years). When we last left June and Day, they were on a train headed to the warfront near Las Vegas, after escaping from a Republic prison.

When we meet them again, very little time has passed. They finally make it to Vegas to meet up, hopefully, with the Patriots, a rebel group trying to overthrow the Republic. It doesn't take them long to get in touch, but when they do, not all is as it seems (it takes them much longer than necessary to figure this out). The price of admission to the Patriots' ranks for June and Day is nothing less than the assassination of the new Primo Elector and the complete overthrow of the Republic government, all in the name of the people, of course.

And here's where things get typical. Nothing in this book was really a surprise for me, but it was the same with the first book, and yet I still enjoyed them both. June is a pretty likable character, even though Lu sometimes goes out of her way to make her seem like an ass, and Day is your average boy hero, struggling with inner/past demons and doubt. Of the two, he is less compelling. The secondary characters are fairly flat, even as Lu tried to give them some complexity; it was all very typical complexity, so there wasn't anything new or interesting about them. The one character I would have like to spend more time with and get to know dies, sacrificing herself after demonstrating how much of a badass she is. Sorry if that ends up being a spoiler, but we all know someone has to die.

By the end of the novel June and Day are all "merh" and pretty damn angsty, even while being the celebrities of the Republic. Ah, the horrible price of fame and privilege. The real issue here, of course, as is with all teenagers in teen novels (it seems), is these two have no idea how to talk to each other. Communication, people! It's a vital skill! Learn how to do it! But then we would have no angst, very little romantic plot, and definitely not a third book, which Lu is presumably busy writing (teen novels these days seem to come only in threes).

One thing I do like about Lu's writing is that she knows how to end a book. There is actual resolution of some conflict, but there is still enough that can carry smoothly over into another book without leaving the reader feeling cheated out of an ending. I really, really appreciate that. When books dont't do that (as teen trilogies often don't), I read the next book out of spite, not out of actual desire to read it.. Overall, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it over others in the same genre, such as Lauren Oliver's Delirium series (yes, I HAVE read the first two, so I am qualified to make such a judgement). Final verdict: this would make for a great anime.