Release Date: January 29th 2013
Published By: Putnam Juvenile
Pages: 384
Goodreads: Add it to your reading list

Rating: 5 out of 5

Synopsis: June and Day arrive in Vegas just as the unthinkable happens: the Elector Primo dies, and his son Anden takes his place. With the Republic edging closer to chaos, the two join a group of Patriot rebels eager to help Day rescue his brother and offer passage to the Colonies. They have only one request—June and Day must assassinate the new Elector.

It’s their chance to change the nation, to give voice to a people silenced for too long.

But as June realizes this Elector is nothing like his father, she’s haunted by the choice ahead. What if Anden is a new beginning? What if revolution must be more than loss and vengeance, anger and blood—what if the Patriots are wrong?

In this highly-anticipated sequel, Lu delivers a breathtaking thriller with high stakes and cinematic action.

Review: Sequels are always make or break for me when it comes to series. It’s very easy for books to fall into what I like to refer to as “middle book syndrome” where they are slow, stagnant and hard to be enthused about. Thankfully, Prodigy was the opposite to that. It.Kicked.Ass. Vigilantes, revolutionaries, soldiers, war, assassination attempts. This book has so much action that it will spin your mind!

Prodigy starts off in Las Vegas - Day and June have left Los Angeles, and they go to Vegas in search for Tess. The plan is that once they find Tess, they’re going to continue east to the warzone to find Day’s brother Eden.

Once they get to Eden, they find Tess with the Patriots, who are guerrilla style soldiers fighting against the Republic. In exchange for helping Day undergo a surgery to fix his badly wounded leg, they agree to help The Patriots assassinate the new Elector (The son of the previous Elector who dies quite suddenly), Anden.

The deal is that June will accidentally-on-purpose find herself captured by Republic soldiers, who will take her to Denver to Anden himself as she will claim to have top secret information just for him about his impending assassination. She will get him on side with her smarts and good looks, and make him trust her. And once June has his trust she will lure him into a trap where Day will carry out the assassination order.

So the plan goes at least.

Of course things never do go to plan - June discovers that Anden really isn’t the villain here, and maybe the Patriots aren’t the good guys after all. With Anden’s life in danger, as well as her own and even potentially Day’s, June needs to find a way to make it all stop without getting anyone hurt in the meantime.

Seriously…. I am going there - Prodigy was better than Legend. Legend sets up the world as we know it, and Prodigy just goes to town as far as the storyline itself is concerned. I REALLY loved the development of both the story as well as all of the characters. So frigging amazing.

There was some major conflicts going on in the romance department in this book! I would think it could only be referred to as a love square perhaps? So June and Day are together, but June now finds herself in Denver with Anden and Day is still in Vegas with Tess. Anden doesn’t hide his feelings from June, and June I felt wanted to reciprocate but couldn’t because of Day. Tess is all grown up now and clearly crushing on Day. I really didn’t like her manipulative side in this book and the fact that she just waited for Day to be all alone before she pounced on him. Definitely heaps more drama in this book compared to the first!

I found myself also dealing with some inner conflict because I really love Day’s character. But I didn’t really want the Anden/June thing to stop once it started. Day is awesome - but June and Day are just way too different when it comes to a relationship. I will say though that the end left me heartbroken. Marie Lu reached into my chest and ripped my heart out and now I am waiting for some answers and reconciliation in the third and final book of this series. There’s just so many things that happened towards the end - I don’t know what to think!

This is very quickly becoming one of my favourite series. Marie Lu writes beautifully and the story has a fantastic flow to it… everything just works. I will definitely be recommending this book to dystopian lovers! Check out the trailer also, it’s really well produced with the use of parkour!

Trailer: