Warning: Spoilers for the book are present in the review. 
 When I first read the summary for Defy, I was very excited to read it. I'm always game for a good girl-disguised-a-boy story (Mulan is one of my favorite Disney movies), and if you combine the idea with YA fantasy, you have a winner. However, not too long after it came out, I noticed that the reviews pouring in were . . . not so good, for the most part. I was actually hard pressed to find a good review for it. Still, it went on sale as a ebook one day and I bought it. About a year later, I started it so I could form my own opinion. Admittedly, my expectations were low, but I wanted to give it a fair shot regardless, because who knows, maybe I'd be the black sheep and adore it. Sadly, I ended up disliking it quite a bit. And though I'm not surprised by that, it still disappoints me. It took me a long time to finish it as well, even though it's not very long. My main issues were the following: 
 - The characters in this book have very little substance. The only people who are somewhat developed are Alexia, Damian and Rylan. Even they are kind of cookie cutter-ish. Rylan kind of just mopes around a lot. They lacked a certain spark to give them any kind of life - there's nothing remarkable about any of them. And the King was your typical evil, insane villain/monarch. 
 - A good chunk of the middle is devoted almost entirely to traveling, and literally nothing of interest happens. 
 - I didn't like Alexa as a protagonist, at all. She's not bad at first - she's attempting to escape the horrors of her world by disguising herself as a boy and becoming an excellent fighter. But the way she carried herself was . . . off-putting. She seems to blush and stutter nearly all the time, and act in ways that a male solider probably wouldn't. I'm pretty sure anyone could have discovered her secret if they studied her hard enough because she's girly. She's also a big fan of throwing pity-parties. Pages of nothing but internal dialogue, moping about topics that are not interesting. And I wanted to jump into the book and shake her when she complains about how unattractive she is. Um, I'm sorry, but if you have two gorgeous guys pining after you, and especially if one of them is the Crown Prince of the county . . . you really have no room to talk about that sort of thing. 
 - The romance in Defy literally does nothing for me. Rylan has no personality or interests outside of wanting to be with Alexa. He's just there, not really serving any kind of purpose. I wanted to kick Damian in the face in the beginning of the book. I suppose he got a little better as time went on, and I applaud him for rising up and doing something about his awful father, but he was still very shady when it came to Alexa. He lied to her a lot. 
 - I know a lot of people hate on this book because of the inclusion of the rape houses, and I can understand why. They're terrible and extremely uncomfortable to read about, sure. Still, if this is truly the way society is set up, I could stomach it. I've read darker subject matter. The reason I dislike the inclusion of them in the story is that it doesn't make sense for them to exist. If there was a logical reason behind it, yes, it would still be sick to read about, but at least I could understand why it was there. The reason we're presented with is that Hector wants to breed all the women so he has more soldiers for his ongoing war. But shouldn't the opposite be going on? Shouldn't he be discouraging women from having children right now since it's more mouths to feed during this difficult time? And besides, it's not like you can put a gun in a child's hand the moment they're born. You have to wait a good sixteen years so (though I guess you could wait about ten if you're evil). 
 - The climax of the book is actually kind of interesting (one of the only points I was actually inclined to keep reading), so some points for that. However, it really got under my skin in the end when Alexa refused Damian because she felt she wasn't worthy of him. She nearly single-handedly defeated the country's most powerful black sorcerer and played a key role in stopping a war between two countries. She's supposedly this amazing, unstoppable fighter who somehow has the ability to defeat magicians. I would have respected her decision if, say, she didn't feel like she could handle all the responsibilities of being Queen. But no, it's because she isn't worthy, which is completely and utterly ridiculous. It's drama for the sake of drama, and that's not something I can get on board with. 
 I honestly wish I could think of more redeeming qualities for this novel, but I'm coming up blank. I'm giving it two stars instead of one for the slightly interesting climax of the story, but just barely. I highly doubt that I'll pick up the second book in the series, but never say never. I may try it at some point just to see if it gets any better.