Champion by Marie Lu

Legend Series #3
Putnam Juvenile
November 5, 2013

 SYNOPSIS

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 the Princeps-Elect, while Day has been assigned a high level military position. 

But neither could have predicted the circumstances that would 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.

 

REVIEW

Overall, I give Champion a 4 out of 5. The novel is interesting and fast paced. It picks up nearly 8 months from the end of Prodigy with very little description of what happened in the intervening time, which kind of bugged me a little, but it must not have been that important to the story overall. BEWARE OF SPOILERS! There's a lot of talk about Day's condition and the fact that he's dying, which pushes the timeline of the story into a pretty compressed space, but it makes for a bit more excitement. However it does make some things a little less believable. 

The one thing about this novel that I didn't like was the ending. The loose ends were tied up much too neatly for my taste. The real problem in Day and June's relationship is the fact that June is pretty much responsible for the fact that Day's mother was shot and Eden was taken captive by the Republic and experimented on. While Lu made that a real dramatic point throughout Champion, in the end it seemed she glossed over it and tied that point up much too easily. You'll have to read for yourself to see exactly how it happened, but I thought it was a bit of a cop out myself.