Literary Critism

The Harvard Crimson has read all of Marie Lu’s books and is giving an overall analysis on them. The Harvard Crimson notes that Marie Lu has a very pure form of storytelling and always has diverse characters in her books. There is always a hopeful tone and they have to follow their morals. The hopeful theme is one of the Harvard Crimson’s “favorite things about YA, that no matter how dark the stories are — and a lot of them get very, very dark — there is always a thread of hope in it.” However, with the always hopeful theme in her books, there is always a risk of the book seeming overly optimistic. Another problem with the hopeful theme is “There always is a happy ending, the couple always ends up together.” This is a common criticism of Marie Lu’s writings. However this is “what makes a Marie Lu novel so comforting.” Marie Lu has very diverse characters in all of her books and one of the things she is often praised for is the awesome in depth characters she has in her books. However “The characters in Lu’s books often seem superhuman, and sometimes they literally are. But the vast majority of her characters are simply teenagers unwittingly thrust into the spotlight, trying their best to follow their moral compasses and fighting against injustices that they see.” Overall, Marie Lu makes great books but it seems like as a reader all the books end in a happy way and we can already determine the ending of her books and some of her characters are a little overpowered and doing superhuman things as a normal human being. 

Sophie who is a blogger for the Me & Ink wordpress read the book Warcross and provided her thoughts on the book. To begin she thought the book had a good balance of plot and character development. First off with the plot Sophie thought “the fast pacing makes it a good read. As well as pace I felt like the plot was really strong. Something was always happening whether in a virtual reality game, hacking or something developing in their relationship.” She felt the main characters were developed well. She really liked Emika Chen and thought “She was a good main character to follow.”  She thought Emika “had an admirable amount of motivation and I loved her saying ‘Every locked door has a key‘!!” Overall she just thought Emika was a really cool character and was developed really well. She also really likes Hideo Tanaka and the mysterious aura he had in the book. She thought him and Emika had “easy chemistry.” However, she thought the secondary characters were developed and there was more to desire in that area. For example she enjoyed Roshan and Tremaine towards the end of the book but felt their “interesting, messy past” wasn’t talked about enough and she would “have liked to have seen more of that.” She didn’t really have any opinion on Ren and felt as if he “was a stepping stone for the plot.” She really did like the diversity throughout the book though. She mentions that with it being a global game “it involves everyone around the world and I love that. And that so many countries were brought together.” There is also lots of “racial diversity, LGBTQ+ diversity and disability included” which she thought was great. The action sequences, which is kind of Marie Lu’s specialty, were done “really well” they aren’t “really long” and she does it in a way “without dragging it” The ending was predictable however this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as “it was all building up to the big end– you knew where the characters were trying to go. Sophie felt as if she “could predict the end because the story was leading up to the reveal and it was structured and presented well to give you all the information. And even though you guessed the end it didn’t take away from the enjoyment at all. Like at all.” Overall she felt that the book was great and just lacked some of the minor details that would take the book to the next level. 

Joey who works for Thoughts and after thoughts read the Warcross book and provided his thoughts on the book Warcross. Joey thought the protagonist Emika was a very strong character. He thought Emika was a character he could relate to. He felt that the concept of Warcross was “intriguing” ; he liked the “competitive AR gaming intertwined with a mystery plot” idea. He thought Marie Lu’s writing was “clear and engaging, making it easy to follow the fast-paced actions.” He also thought the world building was very “vivid and exciting,” mentioning that the “AR gaming scenes are immersive.” However he felt the rules of Warcross were unclear. He feels that the given rules of Warcross were “not made clear, so there’s a dissonance that forms between what the teams ought to want and the players that find themselves in the draft.” He also felt that there were some inconsistencies throughout the book for example the usage of secondary players and the player roles. Regarding the player roles he says how the roles exist but they are used inconsistently throughout the book and mentions how ““Teams in Warcross generally have players assigned to specific roles (e.g., damage dealers, tanks, supports). But what is the point of having roles when it’s being used inconsistently (if at all)?” He felt the secondary character “though present, feel underdeveloped in comparison to Emika and Hideo.” He also felt that there were minor pacing issues in the book and that ““Certain segments of the book dragged, slowing down what should be high-stakes action sequences.” Overall, Joey felt Warcross was a well-written book with a good protagonist and an exciting plot that was slightly weakened by the inconsistency of the game mechanics, underdeveloped characters, and minor pacing issues.