Author: Marie Lu
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 305
Date Published: November 29 2011
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile
Introduction
This book is told in two different POVs, Day, a street criminal, has broken the law many times. If he has to break the law to keep his family safe and healthy, he will. He has stolen many times, and is quite comfortable with it. One thing he is not comfortable with, is killing, He has never killed a single soul. Hurt, yes. But never killed. Day is not a murderer. When he went to steal some plague cures for his sick brother, it shouldn't have been any different. But it was, because now he is the prime suspect for killing Metias, a young army captain.
June, the second POV, is Metias little sister. From the death of her brother, she has taken on a very high ranking in her army, and has sworn revenge on Day for making her lose the last family member she has left. But what happens when Day has a totally different side, besides the criminal that is constantly making the headlines, and what if, he makes her question everything that she knows about her government. The one that she is supposed to trust?
Cover
I think that the cover
looks cool, I just wished I knew exactly what was on it. With my luck, it it's probably something stupidly obvious, and after reading this, everybody is going to laugh at me, but hey, what can you do?
Day
I love Day so much. He's only fifteen, but he knows how to take care of himself after years on the streets. I can't even really explain why I love Day, and before people say that I only like him because he's a bad--boy--type thing and he does bad--boy-ish things, that's not it. He has so many different sides of him. He can be caring, and sweet, and gentle, but he has no trouble throwing knives at people or shooting people when he has to. I also find it super interesting that he has gone out of his way many times not to kill people. He doesn't want to known as a murderer. Just a con.
June
June's a hard one for me. I like her, but I like Day so much too, and because June is trying to capture him, I spent most of the book going back and forth between,
"JUNE DON'T YOU FREAKING DARE"
and
"YAY JUNE. YOU ARE DOING SO WELL!"
And when Day and June start to fall for each other, I went back in forth between
"DAY! THIS IS NOT GOOD FOR YOU"
and
"YAY JUNE AND DAY!"
The one thing that I didn't like about June is that she knows things that you can't possibly know. Like what hand Day through a knife with. Or that he is ambidextrous. That's really my only complaint about her, at times she is a little unrealistic.
Tess
A living example of Day being kind. Tess is Day's partner. He found her years ago. Orphaned and alone and decided to take her in. I enjoyed learning about Tess, even though she wasn't in the story a whole heck of a lot.
Metias
Metias was June's older brother/guardian. In the short time that he was in the book, I thought he was really awesome. Even though he is only alive through give or take 40 pages, you could really tell that he loved June. On the inside cover it tells you that Metias is going to die, so I tried not to get to attached to him even though he was awesome.
Dislikes
Well, really I can only mention one thing that I dislike right now, so here I go.
I found that this book was missing a lot of the... history? I guess. When you are 10, you have to take a test called the Trial. Featuring a written portion, an interview portion, and a physical portion. If you fail, you go off to work at a labor camp, and if you pass I guess you...just don't. It doesn't really say that you have to join the military, but I guess many do. Anyway, what I would like to know is how the Trial came about. How long has it been going on? Do you have to join the military if you pass?
Another thing that I would like to know is what exactly is the plague? I know that you lose weight and you get super sick and such, and your irises bleed, but uh...how long has the plague been a problem? How long did it take for people to develop a cure? These questions need to be answered.
Conclusion
I loved this book despite the missing facts that I think should be included. Either gender would enjoy this book, and I will be recommending it to many of my friends. I am very excited to get my hands on the second one in the trilogy.
