Review: Champion - Marie Lu

Warning: This review contains spoilers for the previous books in this series, Legend and Prodigy!

Genre: Dystopian

Published: 5th November 2013

Length: 384 pages

My rating: 8/10

Overview: June and Day haven't seen each other in eight months. Day's condition is getting steadily worse, June finds herself making difficult choices as a princeps in training, and as the threat of the colonies looms ever closer, nobody in the Republic is safe.

This is the final book in the Legend series, and overall I did really like it but the ending was a little unsatisfying. I can definitely see some of the ideas from this book spilled over into Warcross, such as when June went to Antarctica and had the special glasses!

So throughout the book, I was certain Day would not die, despite his increasingly worsening condition which was very stressful to read about! When a character dies it's usually unexpected, so I thought he would be safe, but even so, when we got to the chapter with his mum and the light and everything I started sobbing. This is a very emotional book. On the other hand, because everyone thought Day was gonna die, I thought maybe June would die instead as a plot twist, but nah, wrong again.

I really liked the last two books for their action, but it didn't seem quite so well formed for me in this book. Day is less mobile and June is busy with politics, so there wasn't much time for action anyway. There was a lot of storylines that needed to be resolved and I think the book should have maybe just been a bit longer. There were still plenty of satisfying 'oh shit' moments though! Also I really liked Anden in the last book but he was so annoying here, and worryingly seemed to be turning into his father. This is something I really would have liked to explore further, but hey ho.

Obviously we need to discuss the ending, so beware of spoilers!

So Day gets amnesia and typically forgets June. In some sacrificing nonsense because Day is 'better off without her', June doesn't tell Day and lets him go. Honestly I've never thought Day and June were perfect together, as shown by both of their conflicting emotions after sleeping together, but Day still has a right to know and now all the war is over they have a much better chance of making it work. Anyway, then we have a time jump of TEN WHOLE YEARS which is just outrageous. June rattles through her previous birthdays to provide a bit of context and disgustingly we find out she dated Anden for a while. There was only a couple of pages left and I was horrified to think maybe she would end up with Anden, but thank the gods she didn't. Then we find out Day doesn't even live in the Republic anymore, which I didn't really like. He is one of the people, that's why they love him! Ugh. At the end they walked past each other, Day vaguely recognises her, and they agree to get to know each other again. I had massive déjà vu because I watched Your Name again the other day (cracking film, 10/10 would recommend) which has a very similar ending. And that was it. It just made me sad that they wasted so long apart. On the other hand, I'm glad that Eden was doing well and thank goodness the bullshit with Tess was over and she could actually talk to June without being pissy.

This was such a great trilogy and I really enjoyed it! My TBR is pretty stacked up at the moment but I will try and read The Young Elites by the end of the year, which I know is ages away but I have so many books to get through! I will be eagerly awaiting the next Warcross book too.

#review #marielu