When a Pincent Pharma lorry is ambushed by the Underground, its contents come as a huge surprise - not drugs, but corpses in a horrible state. It appears Longevity isn't working and the drugs promising eternal youth are failing to live up to their promises. A virus is sweeping the country, killing in its wake, and Longevity is powerless to fight it. When Richard Pincent of Pincent Pharma suggest that the Underground has released the virus, something has to be done to put the story straight and once and for all alert everyone to the truth. I read the first book in this series a couple of years ago and so until I started The Legacy I actually couldn’t remember much about them. To me, The Declaration was the first dystopian book I ever read (though I never knew what the genre was called back then) and so holds a special place in my heart. It was because of that that was both really happy and a little worried when I received this book in the post, feeling scared that I may be let down, after all, I have higher expectations now than I did when I was eighteen.
This book didn’t really let me down, nor did it exceed my expectations. It wasn’t absolutely amazing, but it was a great read and although I wasn’t totally absorbed by the story I still enjoyed the story enough to keep reading until the end. I’d always wondered how Malley was going to solve the issue of longevity and while the ending wasn’t the one that I was expecting , it was still a good ending and a great solution. It really did leave a bittersweet feeling, which is how I like my dystopians to be – hard-hitting.
I do feel as though this whole series was maybe aimed at a slightly younger audience as, even though The Legacy has the characters a little older and wiser and has this bittersweet feel to it, it isn’t as hard hitting as some of the other dystopians out there like, say, The Hunger Games or Blood Red Road. That’s not to say that this is a bad thing though – The Legacy puts across the moral in a great way without being too gritty and too preachy.
It was great to revisit the characters, but I couldn’t really connect with them, maybe this is because of the scene switching, which meant that we never really saw enough of one character to empathise. I also feel that, while making Anna and Peter parents was a good idea, they acted way too old for their age at times, which, in my estimations is about seventeen? Call me out if I’m wrong. I also thought that at times Anna was whiney and annoying in the way she treated Peter, but we don’t see enough of her to get too annoyed by this.
Gemma Malley is as great a storyteller as always, creating an involved plot with political and moral issues and completely driving the idea forward with fantastic prose, great character relationships and superb action.
Overall, The Legacy was not a breathtaking read, but it did have me shocked at many points and wanting to read more. The characters came across as a little flat and I never felt fully connected to the story, but the plot itself is fantastically paced, leading to a fantastic climax and a slightly cheesy epilogue. Despite not being as good as the other books, The Legacy was a good end to a fantastic dystopian series.
Overall Rating: B
Series/Stand Alone: Final book in the series (Book #1 - The Declaration, Book #2 - The Resistance)
UK Release: August 1st 2011
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Book received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review
The Declaration was probably the first dystopian book I ever read as well, so I'm rather fond of the series :P. I thought this was a great end to the trilogy - glad you enjoyed it even if you didn't love it. Thanks for the review!
ReplyDeleteI haven't started this series yet, but I am quite keen to read it at some point!
ReplyDeleteGreat review.