ok, how should i put it… i believe that there's no such thing as «young adult fiction» ― there's just badly written fiction that a person with some reading history and taste could not possibly enjoy… so only (a part of) young audience keeps giving it five start on goodreads. marie lu's «legend» is, in my humble opinion, just a piece of such fiction.

essentially, it's a barbie-story disguised as dystopian sci-fi. you get your barbie-girl who's the best in everyting. you get your ken ― this time it's the barbie-girl's brother. you get a barbie-boy who's basically a barbie-girl, only a boy =) and then you have your villains who are just evil ― no reasons, no explications, no history, just absolute evil. with this setup the story, the attempt at creating a dystopian world ― everything is secondary to teh barbie-girl meeting the barbie-boy and, well, kissing.

the resulting text is as pathetically naïve as it's naïvely pathetic. and the limits of the genre are so strict that if you've read at least one of those sci-fi barbie-stories ("the 5th wave", "in the after" etc.) ― there's little reason to read any more. unless, of course, you love barbie-literature.

p.s. so far i've only read one series that takes all the same ingredients... and still achieves something pleasant to read ― amie kaufman's "the illuminae files" series.