Review of: Champion by Marie Lu

Over the course of the past year or so, I have posted about a series of books by author Marie Lu. the titles in question are Legend, And Prodigy. I have mentioned the two books because to mild suprise I have recently discovered that there is in fact a third novel in the series. to understand my suprise, you'll have to get a summary of the books.

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT

 At the beginnig of the book Legend, we find ourselves dropped into a future scociety where environmental disasters, ant political infighting have torn the United States apart. The two resultant nations are vastly different and embroiled in a bloody war that is almost as old as the countries themselves we meet Day in the slums of Los Angeles, fighting against a corupt and cruel dictatorship. June is on the opposite side, the Daughter of a rich family in the So called "republic" she is one of the governments best and brightest. with the suden murder of her brother, the last remaining member of her family she sets out to  track down the prime suspect _ Day. But of course the story is more complicated than that. with a comendable level of talent Marie Lu weaves a story of romance, deception and dark secrets. the books' sequel picks up the story with details that are just too good to give away. The end result however is sad but carries the sobering element of reality where not everything has a picture perfect ending.

     Being completely satisfied by the ending of prodigy, I was surprised yet pleased to find a third book had been written. The book that I belive now to be the trilogy's finale picks up six months from the end of the second volume. Although it was an engaging book and never failed to hold my attention, it seems to have been a book that was not originally planned within the framework of the series and consequently didn't have me raving quite as much as it's predecessors. In my experience as a reader, and to a lesser extent as a writer, planning is the foundation of a good story. This being said, any additions tend to only cause structural problems that tend to cause more and more problems as the stories progress. It is a tribute to Marie Lu's competence as a writer that she was still able to produce a well written story without many holes in the story. Though it will never in my opinion be quite at the level of the first two in it's collection the book Champion, by Marie Lu is still well worth a read.