Steelstriker by Marie LuMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Not unlike Warcross and Wildcard before it, Skyhunter and Steelstriker exist to prove that as much as I typically find something irksome about the trend of YA duologies that's gone on for years and years, Marie Lu is damn good at actually justifying the two-part story - and this one, a blistering anti-imperialist (and anti-conservative, like the nightmarish scene where the Karensa Federation's map now covers the whole land in red instead of the one free blue holdout of Mara) critique and world-class post-apocalyptic SFF thriller, loaded for bear with twists as the heroes and villains collide in their many-layered gambits. And, of course, for the first time since the original Legend trilogy, Lu goes back to giving us two excellent first-person POVs - Talin, forced into servitude at the hands of the Karensan premier's threats to kill her friends and family, and Red, wanting so much to save her but plagued with uncertainty and anxiety and depression. It's a genius feature on Lu's part to not give that negative inner voice of Red's a distinct formatting - it embeds itself much more thoroughly and insidiously into the narrative that way, as depression is wont to do. But this book concludes the duology with Lu's finest signature aplomb, and to this world I now bid ave atque vale while eagerly awaiting her next work, which Lu's been teasing lately with particularly great promise.
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