Book Review: Champion

Champion
Marie Lu
Star Rating: 4 (out of 5)
Genre: Dystopian
Pages: 384

Warning: This is the third book in the Legend trilogy, so spoilers may be present in this review and I would hate to ruin anything for you. Please read at your own risk.

Synopsis:

June and Day have sacrificed so much for the people of the Republic—and each other—and now their country is on the brink of a new existence. June is back in the good graces of the Republic, working within the government’s elite circles as Princeps Elect while Day has been assigned a high level military position. But neither could have predicted the circumstances that will reunite them once again. Just when a peace treaty is imminent, a plague outbreak causes panic in the Colonies, and war threatens the Republic’s border cities. This new strain of plague is deadlier than ever, and June is the only one who knows the key to her country’s defense. But saving the lives of thousands will mean asking the one she loves to give up everything he has. 

Thoughts:

I'll be honest. I wasn't extremely crazy about the first two books in this series. I loved the idea behind it. I loved the ties of family that were evident in each book, and how they would do anything for each other, even if it meant risking their own life in the process. That was one of my favorite things in the series.

I think Marie Lu used the same strategy to write each book. Make most of the book full of action with a few plot twists here and there, and then at the end of each book, drop the bomb on the reader and make them furious enough to read the next one. (A little Hunger Games-esque.)

In this book, she used those family ties that I talked about a bit ago, and she used that to her advantage when she used the dropping of the bomb strategy at the end. She was able to use the reader's emotions and feelings to create suspense and then pull off a plot twist that she figured no one would see coming.

The only problem with the dropping the bomb at the very end tactic is that you wait the entire book to finally have the major plot twist. It doesn't show up as a climax of the book, but the very end. That left the earlier parts of the book not as full of action as I would have liked. There could have been a few more mini bomb drops earlier on.

This book is again narrated by both June and Day, the main characters, and I was ecstatic that they finally sounded different from each other. In the first two books they really didn't have their own distinct voices. Sure, they had their own thoughts, but for the most part neither one had a way of narrating that made them drastically different from the other. They were like the same person. But in Champion, the author finally was able to give them each their own voice.

The ending of the book was a really nice conclusion to the whole series. There are a few things that I would've liked to see differently, but over all it tied everything together in the end.