In my book club we had all read The Hunger Games. Then we recently read Divergent, and one of the members then passed on the following link:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ariellecalderon/book-series-to-read-if-you-enjoyed-the-h....

Having read (and loved) two of the 15 series recommended (Divergent, Ender's Game), I decided to give the other books a try.

Legend is the first one. I really liked it. It is narrated in the first person by the two main protagonists: Day (a teenage boy scrounging to survive) and June (a wealthy extremely bright and talented teenage girl). It was a little slow to start, a bit disorienting, jumping straight into the ruminations of Day in a world that had not been described to the reader as yet.

The publisher chose to illustrate the change in voice by alternating fonts and font colours. Initially a little distracting, this quickly became a non-issue (and possibly even a little helpful) as the book's pace picked up. Once I got into it (about p. 73), I couldn't put it down.

The characters are strong and complex, the world-building is done organically: we find out about the extreme separation of the haves and have-nots through the observations and lived experience of the characters. Even the secondary characters are well drawn. The plot is solid and the pace builds to a fever pitch. I could not put it down 'til I'd finished the whole book my heart racing all the way.

In my opinion, Legend is better than The Hunger Games, and at the same level as Divergent. I am anxiously awaiting the sequel: Prodigy from the library. (The third in the trilogy: Champion, is due November 2013).

Next to read in the "15 recommended" list is Graceling. ( )

Plot: 3 1/2 stars
Characters: 3 1/2 stars
Style: 4 stars
Pace: 4 1/2 stars

Dystopias have become so common, but I like the twists on it in this one. Good style, hard to put down even when sometimes characters irritated me. I've already got the second one (Which is why I picked up this one). so I'll give it a read too. ( )

A good Hunger Game read-alike. The selling point for me was the author's note saying she was inspired by Les Mis, specifically retelling the story between a famous criminal and a famous law enforcer.

I think overall it was a touch too predictable for me to love, the characters were a little too stock (especially Jameson), the setting too familiar. But it's fun and I just might read the sequel. ( )

My 11-year-old son devoured this series and asked me to read them so we could chat. So of course I had to pick this one up and give it a go.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. YA and dystopian novels are not my things. Then add them together and I would normally steer as far away as I could. However, Marie Lu is a fabulous writer that sucked me into her story and had me wanted to finish to find out how it ends! I was even shocked by one death and text my son "well ___ just died that was dumb and pointless." LOL, he assured me it had to happen and I would find out why in the later books. So of course now I need to read the next books so I know how the story unfolds.

My only complaint is how she wrote the main characters June and Day. They are both 15 both she wrote as if Day was older. I kept having to remind myself they were both still babies and some of the relationships and interactions felt too grown for my taste. ( )

Trigger warnings: Death of a brother, death of a mother, gun violence, mass shooting, plague, torture
Note that I got this book from a pile and now I own it.

8/10, even after I read this book again this year this still holds up really well and it's still one of my favourite science fiction dystopian books of all time and it's just as good as others if not better; even when I first read this book I was immediately impressed by how well written it was. It begins with the two main characters June and Day and I really liked the juxtaposition in the beginning where June lives a privileged life in the Republic's elite patrol whilst Day is a street rat living in the slums trying to fend for himself and his family after his father was gone. June is just about to graduate when Day breaks into the hospital to get some medicine and apparently kills June's brother Metias in the process. June finds out about it and decides to hunt him down which takes up around the first half. In the second half June unknowingly develops an attraction with Day but then once she realised she stopped that and told the patrol she'd found him and so they catch him and kill his mother in the process. Once Day was caught he was sent to prison for interrogation and somehow June eventually discovered that what he said before about the dystopian government was right so they escape the country and it all ends on an epic cliffhanger, so exciting and I can't wait to read the next two books in the series. ( )