'Legend' By Marie Lu: Character Analysis

I have finished reading Legend by Marie Lu. The prompt I have chosen for my Journal Entry is “Describe the author’s craft (language and style). What was good about the author’s writing? What thing might you try to do in your writing that you learned from this author?” Things that I believe the author did well in her writing were the use of perspective, character development, and foreshadowing.

One of the features of Legend was that it was told by two characters in the same story, Day and June. Day is a world-famous criminal with the intent to help his poor family from being infected by the plague by stealing and looting, while June is the sister of Metias, a Captain in the Republic’s government. The plot ultimately revolves around June hunting
Despite Day being a criminal who steals and refuses to help any side of the current war going on (The Republic vs. The Colonies vs. The Patriots) he is a very likable character when you look at his morals and actions he does that no one sees. Some of these include helping his family from starving or dying, and on page 109 actually helping a girl who was caught in the middle of a street fight and taking care of her for several days, which ironically turned out to be June. “ ‘Come on,’ he urges. I take his hand. In the dust and chaos, we hurry down the street and disappear into the afternoon’s lengthening shadows.The opposite goes for June, however. I actually disliked June through the beginning and middle of the book because she was blindly following her Commander’s orders and didn’t care to look at the facts that Day didn’t actually do anything wrong. Especially when June turns in Day even after finding out he isn’t a bad person on page 155: “They’ve sent her to hunt me down. And now, because of my idiocy, she has tracked me down to my family. I close my eyes - I’d trusted this girl.”, and has Day’s mother killed right in front of his eyes. This slowly changes, thankfully, as June begins to rebel against the government after discovering a hidden blog created by her brother, Metias, shortly before his death. On page 241: “In its place appears what looks like a blog. My breath catches in my throat. There are six brief entries here. I lean forward in my chair and start reading.” It said that the government actually had created their plagues that occasionally came to control the population, which explained how they always had cures for the wealthy immediately. It reveals that the plagues are spread through artificial meats created underground and the biggest fact of all, that Thomas, a former friend of Metias who developed feelings for June, most likely killed him. The blog also goes over how the