What I Liked
This story is so fast-paced. I can't think of a single scene or page that wasn't essential. My attention was caught the entire read and I had trouble putting the book down. The characters are clever and witty. June's observational skills are fascinating, as is the structure of the government

Spoiler

and their experimentation on poor people in order to create bio-weapons for their enemy

.

I appreciated the powerful female characters in this book. Kaede, Tess, June, and female antagonists are fully capable, articulate, intelligent, and physically strong as they maneuver throughout Legend.

At first, I thought Legend was going to offer social commentary on how standardized testing does not always show the strengths of special children, but this changes towards the end of the book

Spoiler

when it turns out that Day, an obviously brilliant young man, did actually excel in the Trial and it was only the big bad government that changed his score

. Regardless, I thought the Trial was a fascinating addition to this world. I loved the use of prodigies as main characters. According to the acknowledgements at the back of the book, it seems that Marie Lu began writing Legend as a 14-year-old, which would make her some kind of prodigy as well.

Overall, Legend is absorbing, fast-paced, and clever. The characters are likable and entertaining. I enjoyed this read.

What I Didn't Like
I find it problematic when the author tries so hard to give her two narrating protagonists separate voices that she must give them different fonts and even change the color of the fonts. Day and June would have, or should have, stood apart separately without the necessity and the distraction of changing up their fonts. Each time Day's narration began, I found myself become distracted and bothered by his brown, not-Times New Roman font. Maybe this is a nitpicky thing to say, but it bothered me. These characters should have been strong enough through the writing alone to stand separately from each other.

The romance between June and Day happens fast and is based almost solely on initial physical attraction instead of personality and banter. The descriptions of characters at times seemed a little bizarre. Example: Day is an Asian boy with white blonde hair and startling blue eyes.

While I realize this is a YA novel, the ages seemed often shockingly and unbelievably young. Day began his life of crime at only 10 years old. Tess is 13 and has medical skills that would take most people years in college to gain. There are multiple teenagers in the military and in working positions in this world

Spoiler

in Tess's case, she is embraced into the Patriots as a medic at 13

, which I had trouble believing. Would a realistic government give a 15-year-old, no matter how smart, the responsibility of tracking down the country's greatest criminal? Especially immediately after the death of her guardian/older brother? These were a few things that I struggled to embrace about this story's world.

Again, this is picky, but I found a misspelled word in the book! "Capital" used instead of "capitol," and someone in the editing process should have caught that.