The Defy Trilogy: My Two Cents

This post contains affiliate links.

I'm totally a sucker for a good Young Adult novel.  One of my all time favorite bloggers, Marissa over at Rae Gun Ramblings, has very similar tastes when it comes to books, so I've added about ninety percent of her recommendations to my library list over the years.  Last summer she shared books to bring to the pool and I just finished one of the series mentioned there.  (I have a long list, so sometimes it takes a while to check something off!)

If you follow me on Instagram you might have seen one of my lame attempts at taking an artistic photo of these books.  Of course, reading this post means you'll see more!  By the way, I am a huge fan of the cover art.

The Defy trilogy (Defy, Ignite, and Endure) follows a strong female protagonist as she battles her way through one misfortune after another.  While it is set in a somewhat fantasy world (magic and sorcerers exist) and there are plenty of adventures I would say this is primarily a romance novel, with it's rather predictable love triangle.  (Tiny spoiler: I was totally rooting for the other guy!)  While this is YA fiction, and overall this is a fairly clean cut trilogy, there are certainly some more grown up themes.  The evil guys do some particularly evil things, including rape.  

I'll admit, it is fairly predictable.  There are some rather gaping plot holes.  It's not entirely original.  I would love deeper character development.  Despite all of that it was a fun read.  I read all three books in the course of a week, and once one was finished I was eager to start the next one.  It's fluffy fun reading.  Great for the last bit of summer vacation!

Finally, maybe I'm just seeing Disney in everything lately, but it's certainly reminiscent of Mulan.  Of course the whole girl-is-actually-a-boy-thing also immediately brings to mind Twelfth Night.  But again, maybe that's just me.


Linking up here, here, and here.