Legend (review)

These days, the United States is a historical legend, a distant dream of a time when the Republic and the Colonies were a single nation, before the floods and shortages and plague. Now the Republic is a totalitarian nightmare, battling both the Colonies and a homegrown terrorist group called the Patriots while suppressing all dissent and social mobility among its citizens. Pitted against each other amid all this are two teens (who take turns narrating): June, an orphaned, privileged prodigy and rising military star, and Day, a whip-smart, good-hearted street kid whose nonviolent subversive crimes and ability to escape capture have made him the Republic's most-wanted offender. When Day is framed for June's brother's murder, June receives an expedited graduation and an order to hunt him down; luckily, fortune throws them together anonymously, and by the time June figures out just who it is that rescued her from a street fight, doubts about his guilt are (given that one super-hot kiss) inevitable. Unfortunately, so is his arrest and that of his family, so that June's gradual rejection of everything she's been taught about the virtue of the Republic coincides with increasingly perilous subterfuge, investigation, and escape efforts. The lightning pace, epically evil institutional bad guy, and compelling central mystery (who did kill June's brother?) make this an easy sell, while the extent to which June is morally compromised by her actions throughout the book adds depth and offers an intriguing mirror image of the usual dynamic of powerful, conflicted boy and kind, determined girl. Fans of The Hunger Games (BCCB 11/08) will be all over this far-future tale of costly personal heroism in the face of brutal oppression.