Rebel

Legend, Volume 4

By: Marie Lu

Narrated by: Nile Bullock, Steven Kaplan

Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

The plot is fast paced, the narrators are engaging, and the story is an excellent addition to Lu's popular dystopian works." (AudioFile magazine)

Respect the Legend. Idolize the Prodigy. Celebrate the Champion. But never underestimate the Rebel.  

With unmatched suspense and her signature cinematic storytelling, number one New York Times best-selling author Marie Lu plunges listeners back into the unforgettable world of Legend for a truly grand finale.

Eden Wing has been living in his brother’s shadow for years. Even though he’s a top student at his academy in Ross City, Antarctica, and a brilliant inventor, most people know him only as Daniel Wing’s little brother.

A decade ago, Daniel was known as Day, the boy from the streets who led a revolution that saved the Republic of America. But Day is no longer the same young man who was once a national hero. These days he’d rather hide out from the world and leave his past behind. All that matters to him now is keeping Eden safe - even if that also means giving up June, the great love of Daniel’s life.

As the two brothers struggle to accept who they’ve each become since their time in the Republic, a new danger creeps into the distance that’s grown between them. Eden soon finds himself drawn so far into Ross City’s dark side, even his legendary brother can’t save him. At least not on his own...

©2019 Marie Lu (P)2019 Macmillan Audio

Not Needed

Although it felt that the last book ended in an appropriate place, I was still receptive to another book in the series. Unfortunately, I don't feel this is the book we wanted or the series needed. Most problematic for Rebel is the addition of Eden's POV at the expense of June's. June was a character many of us followed the most and wanted to see more; Eden's POV did not make up for that lack. Further problematic was that the story was a rehash of the first three books and utterly meaningless and unneeded. It felt like filler when admittedly I think most of us were just looking for closure of Day and June's arc anyway.

Story: It's been 10 years since Daniel and Eden moved to Ross City in Antarctica to start over. Daniel still doesn't remember much of his own history and Eden is having issues fitting in with the Ross City elite at the university. Daniel now works as a special forces agent for the government while Eden attempts to complete his studies. When Eden befriends a janitor girl from the lower caste undercity, he is introduced to a world very familiar to him (a world his brother has forgotten) of those trapped in utter poverty by the government. To earn money to buy medicine to save her father, Pressa and Eden race drones in an illegal sport condemned by the government. Unbeknown to the brothers, a criminal lord is going to make a play at bringing down the Ross City system and free the citizens. But is he doing it for altruistic reasons or does he have his own agenda?

Eden's POV was tough to like: he's whiny, ineffective, heavily endangers his brother many times, and otherwise does not seem like an adult. I'd have thought he was 16 or so rather than 21 since he whines so much about being under the thumb of an uncaring older brother who is too obsessed with work to notice him. Add to this that he is supposed to be a child prodigy who can invent things no one else can and it gets very far fetched.

Daniel has pretty much been rendered useless now. He spends most of the book being confused: about his new life, about his past, about how to deal with his brother, and about whether the Ross City point system is evil or not. And let's not forget that he is also confused about why he is obsessed with June. To get to the resolution of the June-Daniel relationship, we have to wait the whole book because June isn't in a lot of it. It's mostly about Eden screwing things up and being resentful that big brother doesn't give him more attention or understand him better.

The villain in this is morally grey at the beginning, which I appreciate. I wish Lu had given him more chances to keep that ambiguity instead of having him devolve into cartoon villain pantomimes that destroyed all sense of depth and nuance by the end. There was a chance to have something very interesting there.

I listened to the Audible version and appreciated the Daniel narrator, who I am familiar with from pervious books. The Eden narrator, however was more problematic. He has a great voice and was very emotive - but in the wrong way. The narrator has a very strong inner-city East coast accent/inflection that just did not fit with Eden or match Daniel as a sibling. It just felt off and created a dissonance between the two voices - the same if the inflection had been deep south twang or surfy California would have chafed. It just wasn't a good fit to the story or the other narrator

Outstanding, but I miss June!

This is an outstanding extremely well-written book. I've been binge-reading this series for a little bit now and I couldn't be happier with the performance and story of these books. Seeing June and Day's relationship grow and watching them mature was amazing. It was so cool to see a different perspective with Eden and Daniel and was a nice difference, (but of course I love the June and Day perspective as well.) Seeing some new characters introduced was awesome too. When I thought that Champion was the last book I was impressed with the ending and somehow this book topped it! The ending was a sweet surprise and gave a sad love story a happy ending. But not everything was sad! There were some amazingly sweet and funny moments in this book too. Getting to watch Daniel, June, Tess, and Eden grow up throughout this series, and watching them become stronger was amazing! But I do think that since this was the last book Lu should have made the last chapter in Junes perspective or both June and Day. But this series was so amazing and I'm very thankful for it.

My favorite series of all time but the narration..

Starting with the bad, the narration wasn't what it has been because of Eden. The words on the page sound like Eden, but the voice actor sounds nothing like Day. The second (and issue with Marie Lu) is that the last scene should have been told from June's prospective. I could see this being the last time we are blessed with going to this world and I don't like not hearing from her once.

As for the story itself, it felt complete and I'm sure Marie meant it that way. There were several opportunities to stretch the story, bring the other half of America into the fold, or force the 4 main characters to flee to Africa in the end; but she didn't choose this path. This story was as small as Legend and as complete as Champion.

If Marie makes one of these a month for a decade I'll keep buying, but as for the total series, I felt like this one has an interesting story, but it was the least compelling. I liked the novelty of the two new characters, but not enough time was put into Eden's relationship (the way Lu put time into Day's relationship in Legend). The ending was simple, while the end of the previous 3 was very layered.

Let's all pray for #5

Way too much "remember when" backstory.

I listened for about 2+ hours. I at first the back stories were good reminding you of the other books but it never stopped. I started skipping chapters of it and it kept coming. if I wanted that much "remember when" I would have listen to the series again. "Oh June remember when I loved you.. I'm still in love with you. Let's talk about my love for the next 2 hours but not why we went our separate ways. " To bad because I really started to like the story line which was only 25% of the store till I could not take it any longer. I didn't rate this a 1 since I didn't finish it.

Missing June

the narrator for June left a huge void. It was hard not to skip past Edens chapters. It was a great ending though.

Perfect ending

I was pretty mad at the 3rd book and the way it ended. The beginning of this one also had me high key heated. I wish there hadn’t been a huge 10 year gap btwn Daniel and June, but I guess it all worked out in the end. This has been one of my absolute favorite series, despite the heartache in the middle.

Written for teens

I read the first 3 in the series years ago and don't remember them being so simplistic. This felt like it was written for teens or early novel readers. I could see this being a cartoon movie.

Edens voice not good

Love the books but didn’t like edens voice didn’t seem to match the character at all.

not a good choice for eden's voice

The story was fine and I felt like it was worth reading, but the voice actor for eden ruined it. how does a blue eyed, blonde hair kid sound nothing like day at all? It's so distracting from the story can't even focus. Can't imagine a guy graduating the most prestigious college in the world not knowing how to pronounce his Ts at the end of words. (it's mainly whiever hired the actor. He himself did great, but his voice and they way he talks doesn't match the character of eden. I'd love to listen to him in something else, just not for Eden's voice.

Eden's voice actor misses the mark!

Marie Lu did an amazing job with the original Legend trilogy and, though an understandable progression, this addition did not make large leaps to expand the story. That being said, it was a good story and the new ending did not ruin the previous portion of the series as some expansions in other trilogies have done in an effort to further the series.


Macmillan Audio, however, greatly missed the mark in the casting of the voice actor who portrayed Eden's character. He had good energy at times which he attempted to allow the story to flow smoothly, but the regular mispronunciation of various words throughout the entirety of the story distracted from what he was saying. Not certain how the producers allowed so many gleaming errors to slip by. Also, he lacked diversity when voicing other characters in his narrative; only seeming to speak louder at times to differentiate the characters. His reading made it hard to stay connected with the story often making my mind wander away while listening.


Overall, it is a good enough story to read the book if you have the time, but would skip the audiobook.