young adult fiction, fantasy
The fourth book in Marie Lu's Legend series, Rebel, follows Daniel "Day" Wing and his brother, Eden, ten years after the events of Champion. The brothers try to understand each other and who they have become as they get drawn into a struggle that, in some ways, parallels what they endured in the Republic.
Amy's Review:
This finale to the Legend series was an afterthought that was written by Marie Lu (6 years after the final book in the original trilogy was released) because her readers kept asking her what happened to the characters from the trilogy. Unfortunately, it wasn't up to par. In fact, so much time had passed that I did not even really remember how the trilogy had ended. Perhaps I would have enjoyed this novel more if I had remembered more details from the series. Alas, halfway through the novel I almost set it aside because it was, frankly, boring and contrived. The characters and worlds felt like fictional characters and the story conflict was not keeping my attention. The bad guy was simply an obstacle over which the brothers could find common ground and not a real character in his own right. I persevered until the finish which was very sweet. But the novel overall did not impress me.
Lynnie's Review:
I really loved Marie Lu's Legend series- I gave each book 4 stars on Goodreads. Rebel, however, was the sequel that never needed to be written, unfortunately. I love the worlds that Lu creates and did find myself fascinated by the Antarctic (Antarctican?) society that she describes. Sadly, though, the story wasn't as interesting as the world it inhabits. The first 50% of the book is, well, deadly dull. Lots of pontificating about how the brothers don't understand each other and that all they want is to be seen and understood but do they say this to each other? No, not until VERY late in the book. I did enjoy the last 20% of the book- I suspect if you just skipped to that part you wouldn't feel you've missed very much. So, it gets a half star for wrapping up well but mostly I was just bored while reading Rebel.

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