WWRW: Legend and Prodigy

I think I am going to quit my book club. No. I am probably not. It's a totally empty threat because I like socializing and reading even though I so rarely like or even enjoy the book.

This month we are reading Legend by Marie Lu. I went ahead and got it's sequel at the same time because I like to just read books in one fell swoop. In this case... Legend was bad. Really bad. It was disjointed. The plot was unbearable. Just so uninteresting.

Basically there is a North Korea like version of the Western United States--called the Republic. Day is almost a Disney Aladdin/Robin Hood-esque teenager on the streets and June is the exact opposite as a Republic prodigy. They of course wind up in cahoots, though for entirely different reasons and just as quickly as they meet they wind up sharing a kiss. Like all bad YA books. I mean it is a very G-Rated kiss but why do authors suppose that teenagers are so willing to just kiss whoever without so much as 3 conversations? Anyway just as you adjust your mindset that they have feelings for each other the major plot twist comes. Only because the book is written from 2 perspectives you know the plot twist is coming.

Luckily I finished Legend quickly. I was all set to write about how authors should just stop trying to write dysotopian trilogies because they're just getting bad. The Hunger Games I enjoyed. Matched was just okay. Divergent was probably the concept that was the most thought provoking to me. Legend was terrible. It really was. And I had the second book already? I figured if I had it, I might as well read it. And Prodigy was SO much better.

It's honestly too bad that in the world Lu created, her story had to start where it did. All that is interesting starts in Prodigy. And second novels in trilogies historically have been the weakest. I am here to tell you this is not the case. I read them on my Kindle so I'm not sure of the exact page amount but I do wonder if she pitched her idea and the publisher it was decided it was a trilogy so instead of writing one or two cohesive books we were forced to read Legend on it's own?

I don't even want to try to summarize what happens in Prodigy because so much does. It is better than Legend. Way better. But it's still not as good as some of the other series. Because it really doesn't take much to be better than it's predecessor.

The third book, Champion comes out the same day as an another book and I don't have to tell you which one I am going to read first. Though I will eventually get around to Champion because I want to see if it improves or not. And though this is easily the weakest series of the bunch I am sure the movie rights are just around the corner--but who knows? All this dysotopia is really starting to blur together, all these tests and medical manipulations. If I were a slightly more conspiracy theorist... nope I'm not even going to go there. Oh this will be the new Scary Movie format to mock me thinks.

Okay yes. The movie rights have been sold already. Read it. Or don't. You're not missing a whole lot. But if you do dive in--try to have Prodigy at the ready... it redeems it's older brother.

Linking up with Jessica for WWRW. What have you read lately? What's your book club reading lately?