Legend – Marie Lu – Episode 131

On this episode, the Buddies return to their YA roots with Marie Lu’s 2011 dystopian novel “Legend”. This one had all the elements of a classic YA novel, enemies to lovers, some love triangles, and of course a story that focuses on 15-year-olds that are the smartest people alive, Olympic-level athletes, AND models. The Buddies got to chatting about the difference between sociopath/psychopath/masochist, ChatGPT writing books, and the importance of not wearing jewelry/accessories. So, leave your neckless at home, but practice your Spider-Man climbing skills, and join the other Legends that listen to this pod, better known as Buddies.

 

Intro/Book Report (0:00-3:01)

Stock Up/Down (3:02-33:21)

Favorite Scene/Character (33:22-38:12)

Love/Hate (38:13-48:11)

Conclusion/Casting (48:12-52:07)

NEXT BOOK: Executive Power by Vince Flynn

 

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂

All right, welcome to the book club.
I’m Dylan here with the guy you always find
at the center of the Skisring Keith.
What’s up cousin?
I’m here with the demon, the legend himself.
What are we doing?
I’m kind of surprised you didn’t try to slip skis in there.
It’s such a good word.
Oh, she’s in the Skisring.
I was like, “Ooh, Sasha, great.
What’s going on here?”
Here at the book club, we’re bringing out
the best dollars in this week.
We’ll be discussing Marie Luz 2011 YA dystopian novel, Legend.
If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read
or reach out to our past episodes,
you can visit our website, boidebookup.com,
sign up to our DMs on X, Instagram,
boidebookup, podcast,
just acting, Spotify, please download, subscribe.
Give us a five star review.
We know there’s people who listen out there,
so just give us a review.
What’s going on?
Please, and thanks, appreciate you.
Keith, 4.15 on Goodreads.
This was, but I think I was still working on my friends
the Bachman novel.
I was still working on it, and you suggested this
as a change of pace, or which I always appreciate
a good change of pace, taking us back to our YA roots.
And honestly, who doesn’t love dystopian novels?
I feel like this book came out,
and I don’t remember when the other ones did,
but it was during that kind of boon
of dystopian novels with Hunger Games,
Maze Runner, Divergent,
and this was in there, but I never heard about it.
I think I only heard about the other ones
besides Hunger Games, which I read all of,
having read any Maze Runner, or Divergent.
The only reason I’ve heard of those is
because they then made film adaptations to them.
So I guess the legend just never made to film,
but seems to be pretty popular.
Lot of reviews, right?
Yeah, so it is one of those that slipped through the cracks,
but I was looking at most similar to red rising books,
and this was on one of the list.
Get the fuck outta here.
Do you do a book report for this one?
Dude, let’s go, stand up in front of the class.
Legend is a dystopian young adult novel by Marie Lou
that puts the underage in young adult.
This book…
But this book serves up everything we’ve come to expect,
and appreciate from YA genre.
Enemies to love our try, love triangles,
super good looking, morally perfect characters
fighting against a corrupt system.
We follow 15 year old Red Bull June
and 15 year old Red Bull day,
but there’s a catch to be bad.
June is a super rich super soldier,
and day is a poor rebel.
They’re pretty much polar opposites.
You’ll never guess it, but they’re past somehow across,
and somehow they’re able to get along.
It’s like Romeo and Juliet,
but less suicide, more governmentsmottered plays,
and about the same amount of murders by execution.
You want an easy read with some lightnecking
and an entrylevel dystopian novel?
Legend is your book.
Well done.
B, I give it a solid B.
Yeah, that’s my highest grade, I usually give it a solid B.
Yeah, that was nice.
All right, well with that,
thank you for providing a book of port.
Let’s get into some stockup stock down.
Keep what you have for stock up for legend.
Stock up being able to compartmentalize?
Yeah, this is important.
I struggle with this.
You know, be able to set your motions aside,
be able to get angry with one thing,
be able to like, take it, put it over in the car,
and not worry about it.
Well, the perfect example of someone that is
like that, that can do that,
and is probably the best character in the book is Thomas.
This dude, he really made all of the book.
I mean, so he’s…
Matthias is his best friend,
is basically his older brother, essentially,
basically the person that brought him out of
from nothing and built him up and gave him a chance, essentially.
He just straight up murders him, just carpers it up.
You don’t see one tier, you don’t see one out of a divorce,
not one even emotion about it, which I appreciate.
I mean, you gotta appreciate.
Next thing we know, he’s executing some innocent woman
in front of her house.
Doesn’t even bring it up again.
It doesn’t even cross his mind again.
I mean, talk about compartmentalizing.
This is like Bill Bell check, I love this guy.
You know, he played for his team any day.
No emotion at all.
The one thing that was interesting,
so though, and I wanna ask you,
is he more of a sociopath because of that,
he gets so upset that day kisses June,
or he’s, is he less of one?
Because he is showing emotion,
because it is very, very weird that he’s one second
executing June’s brother, his best friend.
And the next second, he’s like,
what the hell, you kissed?
You kissed her?
That’s it.
He’s like, you know, is he more or less of a sociopath?
A sociopath, because of those things, what would you say?
I don’t know what a sociopath is.
I mean, you know, I can say it, but I don’t know it.
You know, I’d be like, oh, that person’s a sociopath.
Yeah, I thought you knew it it was.
I thought, so she’s mad as you have to fake emotion
’cause you don’t understand it, essentially.
I think a psychopath is someone that likes
other people hurting?
I don’t know.
No, that’s a massacist, right?
God damn it.
I got you, I got you.
A sociopath is a person with an antisocial personality
disorder, a mental health condition characterized
by persistent disregard for social norms, laws,
and the feelings of others.
Lack of empathy remorse, manipulative and charming behavior,
impulse, aggression, irresponsibly just shallow.
So maybe he’s more of a psychopath then?
Yeah, maybe.
Yeah, So is your path that like knowingly is manipulating?
I think he just doesn’t have emotions.
Yeah, that’s a psychopath is profound lack of empathy
and remorse.
Oh, sorry, sorry.
Yeah, they really mean the same thing.
is he just a huge prude?
That was my other question.
He’s like, you kissed her.
He’s like 27 years old.
I’m like, what do you care?
Yeah, it’s like, you pranked the pump bro, relax.
Yeah, I was like, wait, you’re really worried about this?
I’ll get in that later, but yeah,
that was the my stock up being able to compartmentalize.
Thomas, great character.
I don’t know, we’ll talk more about the buck,
obviously, as this thing goes on,
but what’s going on here?
My first stock up is moving on,
just the ability to move on from things.
No, that’s not more, yeah.
Yeah, ’cause in the words of the cranberries,
do you have to let it linger?
And then Thomas is, I’m just a little fair, yeah.
But yeah, so back to moving on.
No one really seems to dwell
on their loved ones being murdered.
At the beginning, you know,
Mateus is murdered and June’s boss,
whoever that woman is, or whatever the case is,
she says, your brother’s dead.
She tells him your brother’s dead.
And June’s like, oh, all right, cool.
What else is going on?
Like, did you find this day?
Yeah, I like, wait.
you got promoted, sir.
She’s pretty excited, though.
Exactly, this is excited about her promotion.
And there was no…
She’s going through the diaries.
Yeah, I guess she’s just going immediately to like,
deny, she’s in denial, so she’s like, maybe that’s the case,
but she hasn’t got to the death through the diaries
until later.
Pretty much right when her brother dies,
there’s not a lot of, oh, I need to go walk in the rain
and not care if that I’m getting soaked
and shivering to the bone.
She’s the only person left in her life.
Her parents are already dead.
I’m sure when they died, she was like, all right,
let’s go get popcorn and go see a movie.
But when her brother dies, the only person she has left
as family, she just moves on and continues to tow
the company line, which is a little wild to me.
But then I was said, this is one of those crazy societies.
Like, maybe she’s just so indoctrinated that death,
not that big of a deal.
But then day, he sees his mom get shot in the head to death
right in front of him.
And not more than 30 seconds later, he’s like,
God, June is fucking hot.
I want to kiss those lips so bad.
Legitimately gets arrested right then
and is just all about kissing June.
Compartmentalized kid, right?
Let’s see what’s your year.
Brothers were just taken and your mom was shot to death.
And he’s already moved on to what June’s up to
and trying to get in them jeans.
Like, what the hell is going on?
So yeah, I guess they all just move on really quickly.
You know, people are just dying,
left and right, they just move on really quickly.
to me, very, the one that I always have with YA books
is like, they’re always in their feelings.
So I kind of enjoyed it, not being like in your,
they could have spent like, they could have made
this book two hours longer of him just being in her being
like, oh my goodness, the worst.
Why is it happen to me?
Only, you know, they look like every other YA book
so they skipped that whole heart.
You don’t like the whole catness crying
about everything all the time.
And I do understand that, but a minute of, wow,
my mom was, you know, the rock in our family
and I feel terrible because I’ve been gone
for all these years pretending I’m dead
and then I go back and I see her for the first time
and now she’s dead.
Just half a page.
It’s all we need, baby.
Showdown, tell, demon.
I have no issues with it.
What else do you have to Stock up?
Anakin and Padamay’s relationship stock up.
This is one of those books where you kind of need
to throughout the ages at the window, otherwise,
it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
You got the smartest people in the world,
both of them are 15 years old.
We got the best terrorists in the world.
He’s a 15 year old.
He’s able to escape from full grown adults.
I mean, 15, maybe this he just hit his puberty
when he was like 10 or something
and he’s just been broken up and he’s like a adult size.
Or I was 15, I’d maybe adjust his puberty.
I was fucking five foot five, a hundred pounds maybe.
I’m just imagining a 15 year old run around
and like, what this guy?
He’s the biggest terrorist, you know?
Yeah, it’s like when you see,
Miles Garrett, the defensive lineman for the Browns.
Oh, he’s that?
You see him as a 15 year old in high school
and he’s the rest of the offensive lineman
are three feet and a hundred pounds shorter than that.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
That’s what we’re going.
That’s all I needed to know.
They should have been like, this day, dude.
Wasn’t just born a day ago.
He’s fucking massive.
He’s a big dude.
So that made more sense.
But then we get into the more the Anakin Padme stuff
where maybe 2011 was a different time, but.
Okay, so hold on, first second,
you’re talking Anakin and Padme
because Padme was significantly older than Anakin.
That’s what we’re going to.
Okay, got it.
Just some people might not be big starwars people.
So they might not know what the fuck you thought, yeah.
Well, yeah, the first episode, Anakin’s like 10 years old.
He’s super talented, but Padme is like 16 and 17.
And then she grooms him and then get married.
Yeah, anyways.
We got June who Thomas is like,
she’s like into Thomas and whatever.
And then Thomas is like, I don’t know,
basically gets super super jealous
and is like finally shows his emotions.
We learn how Thomas is like 27.
do they say that?
I think he, he’s, well, her brother’s 27 or 28
and he’s like a couple years younger than her.
Okay.
So he’s like a 26, maybe a 25 year old guy
that’s going after a 15, I mean, it’s just like,
what the hell is going on?
And then later in the book,
we meet who’s gonna probably in the next book
speed that they’ll love interest.
I think it was like, ander or something, andin.
Who?
at like the ball.
When he, like, they’re setting up the next book
but it was when she goes to a ball
and the son of like the emperor wherever is there.
got it.
Remember that?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and they introduce and they’re like,
oh my god, he’s so handsome.
And I was like, all right, well,
this is at least a normal relationship
because he went to the ball with him.
with him.
I did a 15 year old boy.
yeah.
Dangly, this is my date.
She’s 15, I’m 25.
I’m like, okay.
But she goes to the ball with him
and then they introduce it
and he’s like five or six years older than her too.
And they’re like, oh, this is more of a list like love thing.
Like, wait, what?
So, the Anakin Padme relationship doesn’t look all that off
and these 15 year olds, I guess,
are just different in this work.
let me grab a copy of the book here.
(bubbles popping)
It says Marie Lou, but that’s just stuck on with glue.
There’s something underneath it.
Legend written by Jeffrey Epstein.
Oh!
That’s why.
All right, we’re mad.
Yeah, allegedly, that was All right.
I had one more like, Marie listens to this.
We don’t honor each other.
Yeah, there’s also the, when day goes to the bar,
what’s that the girl’s name
when she sees in the fight like Kesha or something?
KD or something?
KD.
KD.
KD, whatever.
KD?
Maybe that’s KD.
Either way, he originally meets her at a bar
and she’s tending bar
and days chatting with her,
but also flirting and whatnot.
And he pretty much says,
if I didn’t have so much work to do,
then I’d be trying to kiss this girl.
And I don’t know, maybe it’s different in this world,
but I was like, all right, this woman works at a bar,
so she’s like an adult.
And he’s 15, so is there another,
like was she older or is there 15 year old
working at the bar?
Good question.
I think this was also around the time.
Do you remember the Chris Brown song?
Which one?
There’s a great song that was about Chris Brown.
I had to use to listen to in college, I remember it.
There’s a lot of good Chris Brown songs.
I mean, he’s terrible.
He can’t believe I’m 16.
Like, there was a song about that,
how he’s like, how good a bit dancer is?
And like, making moves on girls.
She’s like 24 and he can’t put up 16.
Maybe he’s Chris Brown in this.
Like, he’s like that smooth, that swab,
and he doesn’t seem like a 15 year old.
Well, he definitely is.
That’s why I’m not sure, day, I mean,
day’s not your typical 15 year old.
He’s not your typical lead in a book like this
who has a lot of internal issues.
You know, usually these people tend to have something,
you know, going on.
He’s like Aladdin, where he’s just
striving around in the streets, escaping the law,
and slash Wolverine, ’cause it is,
so you did the testing on him.
And slash like James Bond,
because he also is so sure of himself.
He’s like the cock of the walk.
He’s going around being like,
oh, it’s too bad I got work to do.
Otherwise, all these brads would be knocking down.
It’s like, what?
What?
Who is this guy?
Is this a real person?
So he’s hot and he knows he’s hot, you know?
No emotion, Good looking, best athlete, best tireist.
That’s what we all want to be on.
This is who we are striving to be.
Yeah, men want to be him and women want to be with him.
yeah.
My next stock up was Quentin Tarantino.
People might be familiar with Quentin Tarantino,
the director.
He’s a big dialogue guy.
It’s kind of the one of the reasons he became so famous
or his movies became so big,
was the dialogue was just next level.
He was having conversations,
there’s characters were having conversations
that just didn’t exist in movies before.
you know What I call a quarter pounder and cheese
in fact?
right now with cheese.
What do they call a Big Mac?
Lure Big Mac.
But yeah, it’s like, you know,
this stuff didn’t exist before, but now watching it,
we’ve seen it with his hundreds of times
and it doesn’t really hit.
And sometimes you need books like this
with some of the worst dialogue between its characters
that I’ve ever seen sounds like it was written
by a freaking seven year old.
It took me back to my in sixth grade
writing the sequel to Hatchet Days.
It’s something that I would have written back then
but the dialogue between these characters,
it’s so terrible that it makes me appreciate
how good dialogue is.
Sometimes you need the rain to appreciate the sun.
Kind of thing, you know?
Well I wanna counter that with my first love
I was gonna bring up is I wrote,
this is my reading level and emotional level.
So what is that telling me?
Yeah, I mean, it’s fine.
We’re almost 40 year old men
and we’re reading a book that’s clearly intended
for younger audience.
Yeah, yeah.
And I’m okay with that.
It’s entry level dystopia, which I like.
If you wrote this when you were,
I guess we reread Giver though
and I really thought we ever held up.
Oh, yeah, that’s like, I mean,
that’s, I’ve Now it’s entry level dystopia though.
I mean, I was reading my daughter
Giraffe’s Condance the other day, which is a,
a book.
Giraffe’s a big word for a young person enough though.
Yeah, she’s one and she likes that book
and I like that book and it was,
whatever the cricket says to the giraffe in that
is the dialogue between the giraffe and the cricket
is better than whatever’s happening between JitDay and Jit.
Uh, so.
Grinjana Tino’s stock up.
Do you have any other stock ups?
Uh, last one, not about the dog in the fight,
but it’s about the fight in the dog’s stock up.
Okay, let me get it in here.
Steve fighting, I think it though,
he called Skizm fighting, was it?
Skizm, yep, Skizm, Skiz, SkizFight.
Skizm, Skiz. SkizFight.
SkizFight. SkizFighting.
Yeah, I love the Street Fighting element there,
so look, and the overall just fighting,
although I will say the whole,
you fight until you lose things a little bit.
Yeah, I didn’t get the rules much.
They’re like, you can’t get away from the fight,
you won and you’re, I know you’re stabbed
in bleeding to death even though it’s
stabbing’s not allowed and you might die in the next fight,
but nonetheless, you have to stay, it’s like what?
Yeah, and then what were they,
they were gonna chase her down and beat her to death?
Yeah, ’cause she’s supposed to stay in the pit
and keep fighting her. Yeah, it’s like Cassius
in the, you know, the last one was a dark age or a lightbringer,
I don’t know which one it was,
when he just stays in there because he’s gotta
continue to fight people, but that was intended to kill him.
So I’m wondering how this SkizFighting works,
because people seem to keep coming back,
so are they, are the people just dying every night,
like whoever the best is just dies?
Yeah, and there seem to be the, like,
the, if it’s your first time at Fight Club,
you have to fight Typed Vide where
Tester’s gets pulled into the ring,
why is she fighting?
It’s the betting part I really got to make,
’cause I didn’t really tell any odds first off,
and then day is supposed to be this fucking great better,
and like, he’s risking all of their money on a sure thing,
so I don’t know what the odds are,
and then also that he doesn’t, he’s terrible better.
Like, what are we, what are we doing here?
So that was my big issue with day,
I guess, day is me, you know,
it’s super, super attractive, 15 years old,
but terrible at betting, that’s exactly like me.
Yeah, for someone who is, you know,
the smartest or maybe, I think a lot of the,
like, rating stuff that they were doing
is based on being observant.
Yes, they do.
Whatever they were doing,
whatever the test was in this, you know?
A lot of it is based on being observant, I feel like,
you know, kind of like a Batman type vibe going on.
So how was he not able to Batman
that this person walking into the ring
was better than Kai Day, or whatever her name was?
It was like pretty clear based on her movements,
like, oh, her left hand moves like this,
whatever the case is,
that he’d be able to figure that out.
Yes, so shame on him for that, absolutely.
Also, it was like, that the unknown, you know?
Like, if you know something, that’s where,
you have the insider trading,
that’s when you put all the money in,
you don’t put all the money down,
and you’re like, yeah, it just seems like I could be right about.
Yeah, it’s like, I’m just gonna hit Kai Day again,
even though, is that like a fallacy or something?
You’re just doubling down, doubling down,
eventually you’re gonna lose.
No, that works.
And I think the rules are that you just,
if you win, you just point to someone in the crowd
and then you fight them and it skisifies,
and you just skizz on each other.
Yeah, but on your field,
that leaves a lot of insider trading.
I’d be like, oh yeah, I’m fighting this person
and they just take a dive.
I don’t know, it seems like I don’t care for it.
I think I was a big fan.
My last stock up is incorrect spelling, stock up.
Before computers, and yes, I mean,
I wasn’t around technically before computers,
but before they were ubiquitous in the cases,
I gave her a head on.
It used to be the Bay of My existence.
I know words for sure,
but I could never get the big ones spelled right,
and it used to cost me in school.
And now I can just found finger or keyboard
and it fixes it for itself for me.
But if it wasn’t for June’s keen eye
about her brother’s misspellings through her journals,
which she was reading without any sadness,
just reading her journals,
she would have never figured out that he had figured out
that their parents didn’t die by accident
and instead were murdered.
And what led to it was her identifying a few keywords,
which I’m gonna run by you right here and see if you can spell.
Oh my God.
First word, let’s start easy, elevation.
ELEVATI
Yes.
And he had misspelled it by putting TIEN,
which is like, “Mm, that’s so smart.”
All right, Keith, refrigerator.
REFE.
Perfect.
REF, REG, RIIDR.
You’re, I don’t even know.
I’m the worst book in cellar, full time.
I’m not gonna do the other two, but she had got,
he put a D in refrigerator, which is like fine, whatever.
I was like, “Oh, there’s no…”
I was like, “Oh, that sounds right to me.”
it Also could be me.
the way it was written said he put an extra D in it
and I was like, “Wait, where’s the D in refrigerator?”
And then I was like, “Oh, wait, there isn’t one.”
But she noticed those two and she also noticed
his misspelling of bourgeoisie.
Oh, yeah, that’s great.
What?
That’s a French word, doesn’t count.
Yeah, so, I don’t know, whatever.
So, basically this just reiterates the fact
that she really has to have a superior attention to detail,
right? Yeah.
Because she’s going through all these journals
and then she identifies there’s a couple of things
missing which then leads her to a website, blog,
poobxu.com, that her, that’s a Jane Silent Bob,
strike back reference for anyone that was real deep in it.
But yeah, so, basically I just wanted to call out here
that this is what proves to me that she has a real,
real attention to detail and that’s what makes her super soldier
which we’ll get to later.
Yeah, how about the website that guy built too?
I don’t know how you get a, how you even get a website,
if you don’t go to Adi.com or, you know,
no sponsors in this, I don’t understand how you’d even do that
and then I don’t get how you put your face or hand up to it
and why is the computer screen reading your hand?
I guess it’s the future but at the same time.
it felt to me like when like Neo touches the mirror
and the goo snaps back or whatever the case is,
I’m really tripping right now.
There wasn’t a lot more futuristic stuff though.
So, it was the only future.
Yeah, there was no future, I mean granted,
it’s not that futuristic, it’s like a touchscreen computer
that just reads your fingerprints.
True.
But there was No other. But does that?
But, so it’s not like that crazy,
but it just seemed a little weird, it’s like put your finger here
and then yeah, whatever.
Speaking of looking at a future.
I think it’s like speaking of putting your finger here.
Go on.
Thinking of using futuristic technology,
wearing jewelry and accessories, stocked down.
Okay.
I’m not a big jewelry guy, I don’t wear a watch or anything like that.
Are you a watch guy or a necklace or anything like that guy?
I’m a watch guy, but for utilitarian purposes.
Oh, you usually get digital watch?
No, it’s an analog watch, it’s a $40 time X,
I got off Amazon, but I use it to tell time.
Now, do you put it on your right hand,
like my dad does is a lefty?
No, I write with my right hand.
I just play sports on my left.
I have my whoop, my fitness tracker on my right hand
and my watch on my left hand.
So you do have accessories,
so that could be a bad thing for you because this book,
it’s obviously, and I mean obvious, a dead giveaway,
if someone slightly reaches for their neck
and to grab something that’s not there,
that that person that dropped a locket at the crime scene,
is the person that did it.
She’s observant.
now, could you have took a piece of hair or a fingerprint
because they have those things, they have the guys DNA
and just check that instead of assuming the person’s guilty
because they reach for their neck at one point that you saw.
Maybe, but this is a way more surefire or what method, kid.
You just assume right away,
oh, they went and reached for their neck,
and there was nothing there, guilty.
Guilty, but it’s so hot.
Well, Stock down wearing any sort of accessories
because you might be getting caught with something here, kid.
Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting.
Whenever I have a beard, I can’t not touch it kind of thing.
So it’s like the same thing that he’s doing with his necklace
where he always has it, so that’s his tell.
He’s Teddy KGB from Browners.
Oreos. with the Oreos.
Yeah.
It’s like, “Ah, I found your tell.”
It’s like, “What are you guys talking about?”
It’s just so obvious.
This is what we’re talking about, this is tell.
But yeah, so I get it, that’s his nervous energy.
But it just reiterates the fact
that she has extremely observant
is able to put two different things together
and solve things, you know?
That’s the point.
Why not just use a piece of hair?
I don’t get it.
You can’t.
Why don’t we just go in there?
I got to go in my room, I’ll get my gun.
We just go in there and shoot him together.
No.
No, we need to broadcast this naturally.
We need to do it.
No, we gotta put him behind closed doors
and let the sea bass get him.
So it brings me to my first lockdown,
which is what I’ve been leading to.
Stockdown keeping your head in the sand.
I get that in these types of societies,
we as the reader who are on the outside of it
can clearly see this faults of the society.
We can see, “Oh, can’t you guys realize
it’s all built on house of cards
and their brainwashing you?
You know, there’s this whole indoctrination program.”
I understand that.
And from the inside, people are either,
they’re so indoctrinated that they don’t see
the issues that are right in front of them
or there’s so much control over information
that people just don’t know.
Similar to the idea of them saying,
“Oh, if you don’t pass the test,

723
00:27:05,040 > 00:27:06,720
you go to these labor camps.”
And you work, as opposed to saying
that they just get exterminated.
I can understand that that doesn’t leak,
that information doesn’t leak.
So what has led you to assume
that they don’t just go to labor camps?
Well, besides the fact that literally no one
has ever returned from said labor camp in their entire life.
But I understand that.
But June, with her perfect score,
she’s the only person besides day
who also just happen to meet each other,
naturally, and they’re both perfect in their own worlds.
June is the only person to get this perfect score,
which from our understanding,
which is super weird that part of the test is
like national knowledge.
Like, can you say the Pledge of Allegiance?
Which you would assume that a street rat
might not be super familiar with.
That is a laden that is day, but any who.
A lot of this test is cognitive understanding,
not only your athletic ability,
and you’re like physical prowess,
but also your cognitive ability.
Like, are you able to put a puzzle together
in your mind of different facts?
And it just blows my mind that she is so naive in all of this.
I understand that she wants to be part
of this military structure,
where the case her brother is,
and she thinks that this is like her destiny,
whatever the case is,
she’s also proud of her perfect score,
and she’s on the up and up.
I get all that.
But she has a thinking brain,
and she’s naturally curious.
That is the character that we were shown,
but she seems to ask no questions
about what’s going on around her.
To herself even,
I’m not saying to other people,
I understand you can’t tell your boss,
like, hey, what’s the deal with this?
But in her, whenever we’re in her head,
we never hear these questions.
And she also just doesn’t seem to care or is affected
even though she seems to be a caring person.
For example, she sees Thomas shoot an unarmed,
noncombatant in the face,
and then that night goes to a ball with him,
and is like, Thomas kind of likes me.
It’s like, this guy just murdered someone
in front of your head.
He didn’t kiss him.
She didn’t want to kiss him after that, okay, come on.
What do we do talking about here?
But she’s talking about,
oh, this is like our society’s good,
and you know, those poor people are fine.
They’re just not rich like us,
but hold on, you can just shoot them in the face.
She’s also so chill with all of the torture that’s happening.
It doesn’t franchise, it’s slow then fast.
I don’t think it’s ever, all right, that’s it.
If you’re religious, you’re not just like one day,
that’s one event, that’s it, it’s over.
It’s like all these events and all these different things
that make you say, I don’t wanna be part of this anymore.
It’s not like, like I said,
if you’re part of any organization,
there’s never just one thing, it’s always a slow buildup,
and then eventually you’re like,
all right, your eyes get open early,
I fuck this noise.
Yeah, I guess so, but it just,
it seems to me if you’re a human being,
and she seems to care for other people,
that watching someone get murdered in front of you,
with like, I’m talking like blood and guts.
She never felt like a week later.
Eyes whirling back in the head,
you know, terribleness or seeing someone get their fingernails
pulled out and screaming for their mom.
She rebelled against the government a week later.
I mean, I don’t think it’s that crazy.
It’s not like, it’s like five years later,
and decided, you know what, that’s kind of a big question.
But how long is she?
She was so chill with the torture,
it’s like she’s been there forever.
You know, it’s like, this was the first torture
she had ever seen.
Yeah, it’s a military society.
You gotta, you can’t be like whining about that,
otherwise, they’ll, you know.
Okay, I guess I just don’t know why
she didn’t ask a lot of questions.
Also, I mean, maybe this is probably a hate too.
It seems so dumb that her bosses,
knowing her background and her situation,
which was one, she’s a genius,
to her brother figured out that her parents
weren’t murdered accidentally.
So there is a cover up involved,
and this whole thing with day,
with him also having a perfect score,
but then somehow escaping the labor camps or escaping death,
they put her on the case,
like they put her on the case of her brother’s murder,
they put her to go and track day down,
who they know is a perfect score,
and it just seems, I know it helps the narrative go along,
but it just seems so dumb that they would do that,
when really they should be trying to isolate her
away from all of that.
Well, I think it’s in their defense one,
they didn’t know day was day, who they is,
so they don’t know who they is, too.
That’s fair.
She’s a ribos, she’s going to investigate it
regardless of what they do,
so it’s much better for them to have her under their thumb,
rather than her investing in her own,
and probably discovering these things much quicker,
rather than like, if you’re just leading her,
in the right way, you wanna lead her,
and she feels like she’s part of it,
much easier to manipulate that person there than it is,
if you give them the whole scope of things.
I think that’s fair, I’m okay with that.
I’ll live with that, I love with that.
My last two quick ones were,
we talked about the website,
just the IT department in this dystopian
autocratic society seems really poorly run.
He can just have this website with all of these,
some blogging, he’s like,
you can just write anything here, it’s totally safe.
How are you able to do that?
Do you put a palm in there?
Didn’t seem to make a ton of sense
in terms of the inner webs,
like it should be more strictly controlled
in this kind of society.
Also another shutdown,
to consent, day who is our hero, our laden,
just like gets drunk and grabs June
and kisses her in an alleyway, seems inappropriate.
Kids, you know how Good looking day is?
Are you on your mind?
Yeah, it seemed not Okay, you know.
I mean, that’s your biggest issue, not that.
That’s not a big issue, my biggest one.
It’s a 27 year old doing it,
but not that one.
Yeah, this is a little presumption.
That one’s fine, that one is fine.
He’s forcing himself upon her,
at least the other guy was asking,
Come on, day was fine, he’s at least 15.
Yeah, it’s true.
What about favorite part, Legend, favorite part?
I feel like we haven’t even really talked about
what this society is, it’s a republic.
They’re in California, they’re fighting against the rebels
who are Midwest, like Colorado, maybe, or Texas, right?
Do we even get an idea about that?
I feel like what these have in books,
I feel like it’s always be good to,
we’ve talked about it before,
have a preamble before the book,
it’s like the year is 2050, and you know.
Yeah, give me Terminator 2, or Terminator,
whatever one it is.
Be good to have that of like,
who are, even if we’re not gonna see them in this book,
who are the Patriots fighting for,
why are they that way, and is Tom Brady the quarterback,
and you know, all those things?
Yeah, I need the good fellow’s voiceover.
Yeah, exactly.
For favorite character,
I think you do have a part of her storyline?
Or, and it’s gonna be a similar one,
but it’s just the fighting scene.
Yeah, you already knew that, how’d you know that?
I know All sorts of stuff.
Kade, or Katie, I don’t know how you’ve say that.
I think it’s Kaiday.
or Kaiday.
But it’s spelled Katie, so not really,
but that’s how I read it.
I like to, she’s a scrappy fighter.
She pull a knife out, and just to win, you know?
That’s the type of person I want on my team.
And she’s a patriot, which, for a day’s point,
he’s like fighting this, but what’s your goal?
I don’t know how to understand.
He’s like slightly inconveniencing in the country,
but like, it seems like having some sort of message
and getting more people on your side
is actually a better way to do that,
than just like destroying property.
Like, all that’s gonna do is have less money
for a society, which then less money for everyone else is the same.
Well, he seems more like a Robinhood or an Aladdin,
if you will, like a mix between the two,
where Aladdin was just out there to survive on the streets.
Well, he’s betting money,
like he’s got thousands of credits or whatever, to bet.
he did, and then he bet them, yeah.
But I think he’s a mixture of that and Robinhood,
where he’s also stealing plague medication
and giving it to people, or, you know, doing little things
around town that, and then he’s taking his big off of that.
It’s all of the big things, we know that.
exactly.
He’s the biggest criminal, quote unquote,
but he doesn’t kill anyone.
He’s just
he lives by a code, got a respect for that.
Yeah, he’s Omar from the YRX, if the opposite.
So, yeah, I don’t even, he doesn’t seem like
that big of a deal, honestly.
It seems like all of the patriots,
or who he’s ever leading the patriots,
would be a much bigger problem to society.
or organization.
This 15 year old kid, who they don’t even know who he is.
For sure, and then also just as a side character,
already mentioned Thomas being a great character.
yeah.
how about you?
favorite part?
Maybe when it was over, what you will get to later,
fucking Christ.
I’m trying to think, honestly,
I think when, when day infiltrated the hospital,
to get the drugs and then end up killing Mateus,
or he didn’t kill Mateus, or like stabbed him,
just so we saw a little bit of what he’s doing,
which is also this book.
A lot of the cool feats they do is they just climb buildings
or like climb things.
It’s like, they’re spider men.
It’s like, well, here’s the climb really fast.
She climbed a thing.
I’m going to drop ’em like three stories
and just stop dropping roller something,
and I was like, wait, what?
It’s like, yeah, I just knew how to land, really.
He’s like, well, I guess there are people
that can do that, so.
Yeah, they’re tumblers.
That’s like why Robin is Robin in Batman,
because he came from a family of circus folk.
And he was able to, you know, Car news.
Dumbled, you know.
exactly.
No mad, you know.
That part was pretty good.
And speaking of Mateus,
I think he’s my favorite character,
because I think his story is a much better story.
And I know this thing’s gonna continue on,
and I know we’re not gonna read it.
But I think Mateus is story of being in,
he’s indoctrinated.
He’s full in on this military thing,
but he’s also an intelligent person.
And the story of him slowly working through the problem
of finding out that his parents were murdered
and his entire brain shifting over,
I think that is a more interesting story
than whatever we were given in this book.
What do you mean is brain shifting over?
like shifting over from being fully indoctrinated
to like, oh my God.
Not only did this society that I would die for kill my parents,
but it was, you know,
the people that I directly report to,
the people that I think care about me and who I care about.
And so his whole world getting flipped upside down.
I think that would have been a more interesting story
than this love story that we got.
What about love?
What’d you love about legend?
Yeah, I already mentioned it.
This is my reading level.
I think I remember, this seems like a very similar conversation
to holes we had in their first ever book.
And I was like, that’s a great book.
And you were like, holy shit, that’s terrible.
But I thought it’s not what we wanted,
but it’s what we needed.
It was a quick read.
It’s formulaic, yes.
Is it pretty obvious it’s gonna happen?
Yes.
It was entertaining though.
I didn’t really, you rolled your eyes,
but I didn’t really roll my eyes.
I didn’t wanna kill myself at any point,
so those are all good things, no?
Yeah, No, those are fine.
I mean, I liked the pacing was good,
but flew by, it’s a short book, it’s like eight hours.
It’s definitely, like you said,
the book we needed as opposed to the one we wanted,
where it got us out of our literature
and long book funk, which is what we’ve been doing a lot of.
And I like literature and I like long book,
but I just feel like
you finished it way before me, you read this book.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
You’re like, that’s fucking good.
Yeah, I flew through it, like I said.
So that aspect of it, I like, you know,
and I think dystopian novels usually play to being wellpaced.
I think that’s part of the thing with them, you know?
Could we have gotten bogged down
in a little bit of what the hell is going on societally here?
Yes, yes please, would like a little bit more of that.
I think she did do a good job,
and I think that I liked was the parallels to our society,
which are always part of dystopian novels as well.
I think she did a really good job of blending those into the story
that they didn’t hit you in the face.
It wasn’t, oh, this is just an editorial piece
on what’s wrong with our own society
and the divisiveness we have within it
and how government can control so many things
that screw the average person over.
You know, she hid that very well within it,
and I think that was really good.
I was listening to The Rewatchables podcast on sinners.
You saw sinners?
That would be, did you like it?
I’m not a big fan of any movie that’s like,
here’s the bad guy, and here’s the good guy.
I need some sort of plot twist, or
Yeah.
It was just, it was similar to the Stephen King vampire movie
where a book we read, and I was like, this works sucks.
Oh, exactly.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I was like, I don’t get,
I’m like, I already know who the bad guy is.
Why do I care about this?
You know, I mean, like, and he’s gonna win or he’s gonna lose.
Like, you know, it’s very linear, which I’m not a big fan of.
Yeah, but I think “Cougar did a really good job
within there.”
It was a good movie.
It was fun to watch, exactly.
I also went in thinking it was gonna be the best movie
of all time.
Oh, yeah, that’s a problem.
I just think “Cougar did a good job
of making a really entertaining movie that’s about something
but didn’t hit you over the head with it,
but then you after you watch, you’re like,
oh, I get that, like that was, you know?
Yeah, so I’m gonna try to explain what it’s about to me,
and I was like, oh, I do not know that.
I did not know there’s like these other secondtiered
I mean, there’s clearly racial subtext going on
within that movie.
Right, obviously.
And I think in this book does a good job
of having societal subtext without it being so blatant.
So I would say that I liked that as well from Marie Lou,
so I appreciate you.
What else you got for loves?
I like there some credit to it.
Like, you know, one of those
There’s some great
Well, there’s one of those YA books,
where you was like, especially how it’s written and how it’s very,
like, seems like kidfriendly.
But you got some execution right in front of your face.
You know, I was like, hey, give me
I don’t hate that.
You know, anytime a main person dies, especially in that style,
usually it’s like, come out in three seconds,
and we’re gonna shoot them, and then they’re like, no, all right,
I’ll give myself up.
I’ll sacrifice myself and everyone survives.
The brother gets killed early on.
I thought that was a trick.
I was like, there’s no way this person’s actually dead.
It’s him.
The mother gets executed.
Days brother gets killed.
Sacrificing himself.
So again, yeah, I was like, all right, there is some grit to it
for a book that seems like it would be grittless.
Yeah, I see that.
I see that.
I appreciate it.
I know what you’re saying.
I feel like Hunger Games did that, though,
and I feel like Hunger Games doesn’t have a lot of grit.
I mean, Hunger Games, who dies of any significance?
Like, every single main character lives.
There’s no one that really
There’s no bad
Even the deaths of some of the other district people
that are quote unquote, good district people.
Like, their deaths were like merciful or like, oh,
they didn’t save him some while.
You know, they were never like
Yeah, this person just got shot in the head.
They’re dead.
I need to see you later.
Have you seen Invincible, the animated show on Prime?
And now they’re filled up the Eagles,
are you all murdering?
No, phenomenal.
Vince McPally.
No, my brother introduced me to it,
and, yeah, I’m open to anything, and he was like,
look at the episode ratings, and they were pretty wild.
It’s got a really good cast.
But I was like, give it a try.
We did in the first three episodes,
like half the main characters are dead.
I was like, holy
Oh, it’s quite animated series where the superhero
I just saw one clip of that where guys punching a fist
through a guy’s head, and I was like, wait, what is this?
Yeah, not a kid’s show.
Like, it is a dream or something.
Not real?
Yeah, it is real.
And that happens in every single episode.
Love that.
But yeah, massive cast.
Every time, like, wait, who is that voice for a random person?
It’s a super big celebrity.
So, go, shit.
So I was just thinking about that because, you know,
you said they killed the main characters,
and I was watching that show, and they
killed all the main characters.
What about hates?
I mean, we’ve already got over this.
A little too YA.
The two main characters are not only the smartest,
in the country.
They’re also rebellious, and they’re also
superly morally good, and the most attractive people in the world
like, can we have one negative about these people?
They’re too goodlooking.
And it’s also just way too predictable.
But the only thing I didn’t think was the brother might not
be dead, that was a trick.
But, you know, once I realized you could kill people in the book,
I was like, OK, so that’s good, at least.
But other than that
I’m sorry, assuming you have a taste.
I mean, it’s a taste.
Yeah, yeah.
I thought I was like, all right, there’s no way he’s actually
dead because his book is supposed to be YA.
But other than that, yeah, I mean, it was just too
I mean, we also came from red rising, where you’re just
like, oh, this is what I think it’s going to be,
and then it’s never that.
So, yeah, it’s a little different.
Red rising just isn’t YA, you know?
And at no point.
It’s like young old people or something.
I don’t know.
It’s just a vibe.
This book is not a vibe.
They were already in my stockup stockdowns,
but overall, I didn’t love the world building.
I understand the idea of, OK, we don’t
need to explain to you how this entire world is.
And we’ll get to it.
And there’s also some things that you can figure out
on your own from little clues that we’re
giving you here and there.
That’s fine.
But I’d like to know why we’re here.
Why do I care?
And who am I rooting for and why?
I’m not rooting for a day because he’s
this smug little cocksher street rat, because what
is his dad found a quarter?
There’s coins.
Do you have with frickin’ coins there are in the United States?
You’re telling me that this one quarter could put the downfall,
the entire society, because no one
knows the United States used to exist?
You’re telling me no kid is digging in the sand
and finds an old penny?
Get the fuck out of here.
That’s ridiculous.
His dad’s got a quarter in Shubs in it as a necklace,
and it’s this like, oh, wow, it’s an ancient artifact.
The book’s not even it’s not like it’s set
after a new layer of sediment has been formed on the soil.
This isn’t
I don’t know what yours is.
I don’t know.
Could be.
They have touchscreen computers, Keith.
You think it’s set 1,000 years in the future?
I don’t
They’re in a room and they were like, yeah, all the buildings
they’re down there.
I’m like, what?
I didn’t understand how that happened still, but yeah, go on.
Yeah, exactly.
Layers of sediment pile on top of each other.
Someone could just be walking down the street
and find a dollar bill.
It’s not even like the cotton and the dollar bill
has been put into the ether yet.
So someone could just find a dollar bill and be like, oh,
wow, the United States of America.
Yeah, I didn’t love the world building.
I thought there were things that happened throughout the book
that were just not realistic between June
not being able to kind of figure out
what’s going on with her own society,
to how her and day were able to get together.
And there wasn’t like
Oh, she has these voice mics that she’s got on.
She’s got off his
I don’t even fucking know.
It was so stupid.
My biggest hate.
My biggest hate.
Come on.
Was that this was a short book.
And I was like, oh, this will be fun.
Short dystopian book.
And then as I’m halfway through, I’m like, did fucking Keith
give me another series book?
I know.
I know.
I still love you.
It has nothing to do with you, but I was
upset for sure.
Because I was like, OK, so I’m not going to know anything
about what happens in this story.
And then this had a kind of ending, though.
And this story was so terrible that I’m definitely not
going to read the next three books.
Are you kidding me?
My god, we’re all going to die one day.
And I don’t want to die having read the entire Legend series.
So yeah, it was unfortunate that now I don’t even
know how this quarter becomes a big deal in the society.
So yeah, I was upset I didn’t get any closure here.
Otherwise, it was good.
Yeah.
That’s the clip.
We got it.
How many buddies do you give it?
Would you recommend it?
Yeah, I think this
I wouldn’t recommend it.
Who’s a form?
Honestly, to you.
I gave it a three.
No, this was
I think also it’s partially helped out by the fact
that we just read much worse books.
How dare you?
My friends was like a much better book than this one.
No.
I would recommend this to a sixth grader.
That’s getting into
So one that you’d court of it?
He would
He was blowing the tongue.
Yeah, maybe not.
Maybe I wouldn’t.
I’d tell someone that’s their age.
Look at this relationship between these two characters.
Isn’t it beautiful?
Yeah.
Yeah.
What did you give it?
I would give it 1.5.
OK, that’s fair.
I didn’t book it up.
You bring the average up.
I think the average is right.
2.25.
That’s right.
But I needed to bring it up.
Yeah, it’s pretty
You’re going to go down.
1.5 out of 5.
It should never have been made.
It says nothing.
It was a fast read, which gets it the 1.5.
And it’s just a trope.
The whole book is a trope.
It’s a Chatcheepe TBook.
If you put in the other three series, which I don’t even
think those are any good, really.
Hunger Games was pretty good.
I’m OK with that.
It started to get a little wild there in the middle in the end.
But if you put them all in a computer and said,
hey, write me a dystopian novel with two teenagers,
this is what it would spit out.
So for that reason, I’m out.
I’m saying 1.5, I’d recommend it.
I’m sure.
I mean, I know people do like it.
So I know I’m not.
If you like it, good for you.
I have no problem.
I’m not going to say you’re an idiot.
I’ll tell you you’re an idiot, but not other people.
But yeah, there’s a kid that’s
like you said, like 12 years old and thinks this is a great entry
way to dystopian novels, then sure.
Great.
But if you think this is better than Brave New World or something
like that, you’re fucking crazy with a giver.
Brave New World’s, I don’t know where you’re talking.
Yeah, exactly.
How do you say that?
Did you like Brave New World?
I like it better than this.
The only thing that was good about that
was the dumbest rug ever.
Oh yeah, give me some of that.
I need some of that to read this.
Oh, that’s too bad.
All right, well, that was legend.
This podcast will be legend, and that will never
revisit it.
What do we have to come over next?
Next, we are back to finish out the summer.
We had to go back to the summer reads.
We’re doing Mitch rap, Vince Flynn, executive power.
So back to the bread and butter.
God, have you started reading yet?
Yeah, I’m already, I’m already like four hours in,
and I’m like, it feels like 10 minutes.
It’s just easy.
The first 10 minutes is like, Mitch rap gets out of the pool
and he is glistening his bronze skin, his bubbly.
I already wrote a note that was, didn’t move.
What was our old category?
I also want to know who moved more for it, because he’s
a scoundrel woman.
And I’m like, who gives us shit?
Give me the Mitch rap.
I mean, what’s Mitch rap doing?
Talk about the scars.
Oh my god, it’s so hot.
Yeah.
All right, let’s say I remember the next one.
I went right from it.
It was like, I finished this book, and then I was like, hey,
what are we reading next?
Can we read of any Flynn book, jumped into Mitch rap?
And I started reading it that night in bed, and I was like, God, yes.
This is exactly what I needed.
And then changed the sheets, and I was in bed the next night.
Good night.
I need the blue pill that night.
It was four hours worth.
You’re good.
I need to call a doctor after that, though.
All right.
Yeah, so executive powers Vinny Flynn, Mitch rap,
we’ll have that tea probably next week sometime.
But yeah, this was legend.
I am legend.
I’m probably dead after this.
Keith, good talking to you.
We’ll catch you the next one.
Indeed.
All right.