writermag.com • The Writer | 15Since 2013, her fans, begrudgingly, learned to
cope with their unanswered questions. But then a
few things happened. Six years passed, and Lu
kept writing while the world changed so rapidly
and so intimately it felt personal. She had to go
back, she decided, to Legend. She told readers it
wasn’t just about finding closure (though that was
part of it, sure). It was about finding hope.Life after dystopia
In October 2019, Lu released Rebel, a fourth addi-
tion to the Legend series, which further explores
the futuristic dystopia introduced in the earlier
chronicles. The teenage stars of the series, Day
and June – each prodigies in their own right – are
the star-crossed lovers at the epicenter of a totali-
tarian regime; they fall for each other across
social, economic, and, at times, physical boundar-
ies. Over the course of the
original trilogy, they face a
war between two power-
hungry factions that divide
the United States as we
know it down the middle,
the Republic of America and
the Colonies. Day and June
lead revolutions. They con-
front injustice. They try –
and fail – to protect those they love. As climate
change ravages the planet and violence hits a
boiling point, they travel to Ross City, Antarctica,
which serves as the setting of Rebel.
In Rebel, 10 years have passed since the events
of Champion, and life has moved on. June and
Day have not spoken in nearly a decade. Day’s lit-
tle brother, Eden, is coming into his own. He’s
now a top student at his academy in Antarctica,
but he’s still overshadowed by the fame of his
older sibling. And Ross City is not, perhaps, the
perfect beacon of human invention it promises to
be. Its Undercity – a literal underworld of crime
and poverty – is ripe with corruption, a direct
result of the Levels system, a Ross City policing
mechanism that assigns citizens “points” based
on their “good” or “bad” behavior. Water a plant?
+1 point. Assault a fellow citizen? -10. The system
seems fair until its uglier hierarchies reveal them-
selves: the unemployed are punished for notM
arie Lu is running late. She hops
on the phone with a slight
breathlessness to her smooth,
even voice; having an infant son
tends to trip up schedules, even
(or perhaps especially) when you’re only weeks
away from a book tour. She’s had a few other tasks
on her mind, too – drafts and edits for two new
novels, both to be released in 2020; a handful of
bookshop appearances, convention panels, and
interviews; plus, her active Twitter account,
where she not only promotes her work and that of
fellow YA authors but also shares political com-
mentary, especially on issues related to racism
and immigration. Listening to the calm, crystal-
line answers she supplies for every question, you
might not realize she’s in a near-constant state of
movement. Of change.
To be fair, Lu didn’t expect this either – not to
one day become a full-time writer, for one, but
also not to end up in an interview about a series
that supposedly ended in 2013. Like the rest of us,
Lu thought her blockbuster Legend trilogy was
done. When the No. 1 New York Times bestselling
author published Champion, the third and final
installment, she tied the series up not with rib-
bons and resolutions but with a whopping cliff-
hanger. (If you know, you know.)