2.5 Stars 
 The Republic is now at war with the Colonies, and June and Day have little choice but to use their highly divergent influences (i.e. symbol status) to defend the country that's so severely wronged them. At the beginning, the hero and heroine have been separated for 8 months: Day living in San Francisco with his rescued little brother, whist fighting his illness... and June living in Denver, whilst learning politics as the Princeps Elect. 
 I'm sorry to say that Champion turned out to be my least favorite book in the trilogy. I had high hopes after I ended up enjoying book 2 more than the first one (which is unheard of for me.) This installment was heavy-laden with political meetings, bickering, blackmailing, and maneuvering that all effectively weigh anchor on the pacing. 
 (Note: If you like political intrigue, I'm certain you will appreciate this dominating aspect of the book far more than I was able to!) 
 This reader is admittedly not a fan of most love triangles. So the love rhombus going on in this book did nothing for me. (And it didn't help much that there wasn't any chemistry outside of what was already established with Day and June.) The setup was similar to book 2 in that the hero and heroine spent the large majority of their time apart, and there's no real mental/emotional growth to their relationship. I'm still not convinced they'd sufficiently dealt with the whole problem of June being at least partially responsible for the deaths of Day's mother and older brother. There had already been so much emotional distancing from the characters, the MCs felt more at arm's length than in either of the first two books (in spite of a semi-desperate yet non-graphic sex scene). 
 Logistical Gripe: At one point it is established the earpiece communication system is compromised and June KNOWS (view spoiler)[ the Chancellor of the Colonies can use it to talk to Day at will (hide spoiler)] ...yet she openly divulges sensitive information over her earpiece without a thought or concern for who is very likely listening in? ... It became painfully difficult to think of June as a "Prodigy" after that. 
 The ending was both tidily resolved--more so than I think I've ever seen in a Dystopian--and given to a sort of emotional slate-erasure that made me feel cheated (at least in the realm of character and relationship development.) So on the one hand, there was a great sense of closure and even a hopeful end note. On the other hand... the emotional/relational aspect basically hit the reset button.