July 25, 2018

Review: Champion by Marie Lu

Champion (Legend #3) 
Author: Marie Lu
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile
Publication Date: November 5, 2013
Pages: 369
Format: Hardcover/Own

He is a Legend.

She is a Prodigy.

Who will be Champion?

June and Day have sacrificed so much for the people of the Republic—and each other—and now their country is on the brink of a new existence. June is back in the good graces of the Republic, working within the government’s elite circles as Princeps-Elect, while Day has been assigned a high-level military position.

But neither could have predicted the circumstances that will reunite them: just when a peace treaty is imminent, a plague outbreak causes panic in the Colonies, and war threatens the Republic’s border cities. This new strain of plague is deadlier than ever, and June is the only one who knows the key to her country’s defense. But saving the lives of thousands will mean asking the one she loves to give up everything.

With heart-pounding action and suspense, Marie Lu’s bestselling trilogy draws to a stunning conclusion.

*Spoilers in the last two paragraphs*

Review: This book just completely broke my heart at the end. And it didn't even need to end like that. The ending ruined what would have been a 5 star read for me. Because other than the ending, there was some awesome story lines. So much happened. 

So let me start with June and Day. June is now in the heart of the Republics government. She's one of the first to know everything. She also gets to be directly involved in decisions and negotiations. But some of the decisions put before her involve Day's brother and that tears her in two. She knows Day will never agree to put his brother in harms way again and she's pretty much caught in the middle. Trying to respect what Day wants but also trying to gauge when things become bad enough for the Republic that she might have to strong-arm him into it. Day is now solely caring about protecting his brother from being experimented on again and hiding his terminal illness from June. He also wonders whether he was right to support the Republic and Anden. He does think it was the right choice, but he sometimes wonders if being in the Colonies would be any better. 

I think June was the bigger person in this book. She grew a lot. For being only 16 she's had to learn and adapt to a lot quickly. She has to balance the best interests of the Republic with the best interests for her. She keeps her head level in so many situations where she could have broke down. Day on the other hand thought it best to keep secrets from everyone and try and act like he was being better for doing it. I despised that he kept his illness a secret from June. I despise that he tried to act like it was less than it was around Eden. No one was going to be better off having it like that. It really hurt me that June had to learn about Day's condition from Anden. That's not even close to cool. I get that Day didn't want the people that love him to hurt more, but if he just died, that would have hurt them even more than having them know the truth. 

I thought the reignited war with the Colonies after the plague broke out was incredibly worrisome. Suddenly the Colonies made allies and are attacking full force while the Republic is practically begging for help. We see June and Anden go to Antarctica to ask for help while they only say they'll help if they get this and that. Typical politicians. And the fact there were a fair amount of traitors in the Republic helping the Colonies. Including Jameson who escaped execution for her crimes. That angered me. I feel absolutely no remorse for her ending. She deserved her death. I think what really made me angry was the Colonies Chancellor. Saying that the people don't know what they want and they need the governments help to live. Um. No. I'm pretty sure the people just threw your little idea in their face by fighting for their home against you. Nice try though. Honestly, with that kind of attitude, it makes me wonder why the Colonies haven't revolted against their leaders. But they probably think they have it good so they don't. 

I loved that the Patriots stood up and fought for the Republic instead of against it since they realized Anden isn't his father. They finally saw the good in the Republic and wanted to help preserve that. I really enjoyed this. And I loved that Day was willing to help lead them despite his condition. They did some good work to help the Republic. 

So the cure for the plague. I was actually surprised that June was the missing link for the cure to the plague instead of Day. I don't know, I just felt like somehow Day's illness was going to be related to the cure. Instead it was June because of the fact she got sick when her and Day ended up in Tribune City in the Colonies in Prodigy. Her getting sick and treated in the Colonies somehow caused a mutation which evolved into the strain of the plague killing people in this book. So Day's brother wasn't even the cure like literally everyone assumed he was. I was surprised at that. 

The ending. I'm not amused. We watched June and Day come back together for what little time Day has left. He ends up being forced to get the operation to attempt to treat him because he's almost dead after being shot. June waits by his side for 5 freaking months for him to wake up. And he doesn't remember her? Seriously. This was such a cheap ending. All this story of June and Day and we get this. And she decides to let him go because of it. And then the epilogue?? As if that wasn't heartbreaking enough we get an epilogue 10 years later than doesn't even wrap things up. Instead we got more heartbreak. We see June grow up. She tries moving on but she can't. She loves Day to much to be with anyone else. And then her dog dies. That made me cry. I know pets die but with the pain of the ending it made things worse. She finally see's Day and everything about June is still cloudy to him. He just very vaguely knows that he knew her. But yet the doctors made it seem like he'd get his memories back at some point. 10 years later and nothing?? Seriously?? This was a bad ending. We literally get them introducing themselves to each other. No happy recognition from Day. No happiness for June. Literally them starting as if they never met before. I'm honestly getting really frustrated with Marie Lu's endings. All this building up of people and things in her books and then we get these endings that make me feel like a lot of it was for nothing. I don't expect happy endings all the time but there are books out there in worlds like this that have much better endings.