5. The Legend Continues

The book:  Prodigy (Legend #2)
The author:  Marie Lu
The rating:  3 stars

Well, it's New England that gets flooded, not Canada, so I guess I'll give Lu points for originality.

Prodigy was a bit of a disappointment for me.  As I mentioned oh-so-long-ago in my review of Legend, I had high hopes for the world-building, but those hopes fell flat.  Social commentaries are great, or any kind of commentary - too frequently YA writers neglect to have these deeper messages in their works, as if teens can't handle interpreting profound themes - but I didn't find that Lu integrated hers well into the novel.  Prodigy definitely seems as if it has something to say about classism and class culture, but instead of really doing anything meaningful with those ideas, it ends up culminating in a second-rate Romeo & Juliet star-crossed lovers shtick.  Similarly, the Colonies appear as if they were intended to be an emphatically exaggerated version of today's American consumer culture, but this allegory came across clunky and without finesse.  It's almost as if Prodigy is Diet Theme (TM) -- tastes pretty much like actual Theme, but with zero calories of brainpower required.

Another thing I had loved about Legend was the strong supporting characters, but Prodigy completely disregards this strength.  Aside from Day and June, the cast is all either killed off, sent away from the plot, or they are simply boring cardboard cut-outs, without the depth that I had loved about Legend's characters.  Throw in some artificial-tasting love triangles (yes, plural, although I guess that might just make it a love square?) and a completely cliche 'twist' ending that seems more at home on a daytime soap than in an adventure-dystopia novel, and you've got a recipe for a disappointing sequel.

With these reservations aside, the overall plot was enjoyable enough; I'd go as far as to say Prodigy was stronger than the original in the plot department.  Instead of relying on old dystopian cliches, Prodigy had its own flavour and twists.  Some worked and some did not, but they did succeed in making an entertaining enough story.  Despite this more original plot, I wasn't as enthralled with Prodigy as I was with Legend, but that's mostly attributed to characters and pacing.  We spend a lot of time watching characters sit around, worry, and do nothing; reading about your protagonists wringing their hands and whining for pages on end does neither them nor the pacing any favours.

I'm a strong proponent of the 'Middle Novel Weakness' theory, in which the second novel in a trilogy is typically the poorest; the first has the benefit of originality, the third has the thrilling conclusion, but the second is that awkward middle child that has to bridge the gap, not able to pique interest or present resolution.  Therefore, my hopes for the third book in this trilogy remain unshaken:  Prodigy may have had its rough spots, but perhaps Champion will finally allow the saga to reach its lofty potential.