Review: Life Before Legend by Marie Lu (Legend #0.5)

Three years prior to the beginning of Legend, this story is divided into two parts, the first half belonging to Day and the second to June. Both halves take place within the same couple of days, but the two characters are not directly linked at all yet.

Day's section is about his life on the streets and how desperate he has become. His story mainly concerns the circumstances of his first kiss, what led up to it and what comes of it afterwards. When he attempts to steal canned goods from a rig, he is caught by the leader's daughter, a girl several years his senior. Because of his crime, the girl punishes him by making him work for her and her father for three days. Each day he receives food and he has a safe place to sleep.

On what feels like the other side of the world, June is beginning college at age 12. Because of a traffic hold up (which is Day's doing), she is late to her first day at Drake. Immediately isolated and harassed because of her young age, June stands up to a bully and is reprimanded afterwards for 'fighting.' From this story, it's fairly clear that June has always been a highly-skilled prodigy and that her years in school did not teach her all she knows.

I personally enjoyed June's story a great deal more than Day's. Perhaps the reason for this is that Day's story seems so inconsequential. Note I said that it "seems" that way. It could be significant for a variety of reasons. It could act as the catalyst of his long series of trysts, the start of his self-prescribed isolation, or the beginning of his career in anarchy. The last sentence of his story would certainly imply that, when he says that the Republic has not seen the last of him.

June's half is just so much more engaging. From the beginning of her story, the reader can immediately make the connection between both their lives, even at such an early stage. Day's action causes a reaction in her life that may very well set the tone for the rest of her college career.

It's certainly great to see how skilled both characters are, even at the green age of twelve. June is already impeccable at tracking the passage of time in her head, reading everything about a person by scanning their body language, and literally sidestepping physical attacks. Day is a budding thief and is surviving well on his own. He's clearly crafty and clever, but the handicap of his knee is so much more pronounced, even more so than in the rest of the Legend books. The injury is much more disabling than it ever seemed before. It sort of made me wonder if the pain diminishes slightly of if he just gets used to it over time.

But, as usual, the only unbelievable thing about this is just how young the characters are. If I thought fifteen was a young age for their skill level, then they are blowing me away at twelve. I won't deny that the two of them smooth out and mature throughout the series, particularly emotionally, but it's still so difficult to swallow that people as young as this have such a stirring impact.

I'm glad this was written. I wasn't quite ready to let go of the Legend world.