The Young Elites is a dark antihero series. Marie Lu invites you into a world where marked children have superpowers. The centers around one specific girl and her fall from grace. Adelina Amouteru becomes extremely powerful, but at the same time her powers take her down a dark, destructive route. Goodreads gives the series an average of 4.1333 and this site gives it an average of 4.667.
Marie Lu’s The Midnight Star is the third and final book in The Young Elites Trilogy. Adelina now holds the throne of Kenettra, but her conquest is far from complete. Using her Inquisitors, she invades and captures the kingdoms around her. With each new conquest, the voices in her head grow stronger and her powers threaten to spiral out of control. Across the sea, Raffaele notices that the world is dying. The only way to save it is for the Roses and the Daggers to come together for one final quest. Adelina has changed a lot over the course of the series. In The Young Elites, she was a troubled young girl with hope of a life in the light. The Daggers took her in and trained her, but Adelina’s decisions set her down a dark path. In The Rose Society, Adelina continued her fall from grace as her cruelty and power grew. Finally, in The Midnight Star, she stands on the throne of the people who one persecuted her. She is powerful, cruel, and merciless, yet readers can empathize with her. She convinces herself that she is selfish and evil, but as she is forced to rely on others, her dark heart begins to crack. The Midnight Star is a fabulous finale to this series. The plot picks up immediately throwing you into Adelina’s vicious world. We watch as her cruelty grows and as the madness inside her threatens to destroy all she has built. This book has a very different tone than the previous ones. In both, The Young Elites and The Rose Society, Adelina is painted is a powerful and merciless leader. In The Midnight Star, we can see Adelina’s fragile grip on her power and her weakness. This book also has a shift in priorities. The previous books centered around taking a throne and delivering vengeance. This book became one about cooperation and saving the world. It was by no means light hearted, but a change from the usual complex darkness from the previous installments. The book’s plot is full of nonstop action that is a delight to read. While many characters get a chance to narrate the book, it is mostly narrated by Adelina, as usual. The multiple perspectives allow us to get a look into the backstories of characters. Once again, Marie Lu treats with complex characters that don’t easily fit into boxes of right and wrong. Best of all, the book concludes the story in a beautiful, bittersweet way. I give this 317 page book 5 stars. Marie Lu’s The Rose Society is the second book in the Young Elites series. After Enzo’s death, the Daggers cast Adelina Amouteru out. She flees from Kenettra with her sister Violetta in the hopes of creating a new group of Elites. With this new group, she plots her revenge against the people who hurt and betrayed her. The feared White Wolf’s thirst for revenge soars to new heights, so do her powers. Fueled by fear and darkness, Adelina’s powers begin to spiral out of her control and as Adelina hungers for revenge, the Daggers begin to make their move as well. In the previous book, there was hope for Adelina. She seemed to a passionate and caring girl forced into bad situation. While there was some darkness inside her, it contained. The pain she endured from the Dagger’s betrayal and Enzo’s death weigh heavily on her heart. The only thing that keeps her fighting is revenge and a thirst for power. Sadly, this leads her down a dark path. She is willing to crush her enemies and pushes away anyone who tries to guide her away from the darkness. While it wasn’t always clear in the beginning, Adelina is becoming a villain. The Rose Society was amazing, but extremely dark. It isn’t every day that a book is told from a perspective as dark as Adelina. She thirsts for power and revenge. She is willing to do anything and everything to not only seek revenge, but destroy those in her way. The saddest thing was that while everyone around her could sense her descent, she couldn’t. She let fear and mistrust distance her from those who want the best for her. Despite Adelina’s darkness, the reader can sympathize with her. Her fears and anger seems to be rooted in sanity. It puts a new perspective on what a villain really is. Do they desire evil or do they fail at doing good? Aside from Adelina, we are treated with even more characters. Each one is complex and interesting with their own ambitions and ideas. The book is fast paced and never lets up. It keeps you on the edge of your seat. The Rose Society plays with your emotions as it allows you to sympathize with villains and watch as lives fall apart. I give this 395 page book 4.5 stars. Marie Lu’s The Young Elites is the first book in the Young Elites series. The Young Elites takes place in a fantastical world where people have been ravaged by a blood fever. All the adults the blood fever affects die. For children, there are three possible outcomes. They could die, live unscathed, or survive with a mark. The marks range from irregular eyes to strange patterns on the skin to irregular colored hair. These marked children are malfettos, cursed children hated by the majority of society. Children with powerful abilities are known as the Young Elites. The malfettos and Young Elites are hunted by a government agency known as the Inquisition Axis. A select few Young Elites, who have trained and mastered their abilities, become a part of the Dagger Society. The Dagger Society is powerful, influential and its goals range from restoring a young prince to power to destroying the Inquisition Axis. While the story is told by many characters, it mainly centers around a Young Elite known as Adelina Amounteru. Adelina Amounteru is a troubled young lady. She grew up in an abusive house hold with a father who hated her. Her younger sister Violetta is the only one Adelina cares about. When Adelina attempts to escape her home, her father catches her and her uncontrollable powers kill him. Her powers are aligned to darkness. Dark emotions of fear and hate fuel her power and she doesn’t always make the right choices. She is an extremely and uniquely dark protagonist. It is rare that protagonists are as dark as Adelina. She starts out with some hope for a life in the light, but her many choices lead her into a life of darkness. For those expecting a character like Day and June from the Legend trilogy, you will be disappointed. Adelina has none of Day and June's charm. Adelina sets herself on a dark vengeful path, while Day and June try to right society's wrongs. The Young Elites was an amazing. Marie Lu crafts a strong, yet fragile character that can be both sympathized with and hated at the same time. It is interesting to have a character whose powers exist in darkness and can only be summoned by using the internal darkness within her. Adelina can be disturbingly dark and power-hungry at times. Some readers who have hope for all characters will have their heart broken as Adelina leads herself down a dark path. Those looking for a happy, morally correct tale won't find one here. All the characters are in a morally gray area. Characters we see as good guys are remarkably cold and can be seen as evil when looked at from a different angle. The book keeps your interest from page one and never slows down. The complexity of the characters moral alignment makes the story endlessly enthralling and somewhat unsettling. With every solution, another problem arises making the story more complicated. I give This 355 page book is 4.5 stars. |
The Young ElitesIn the world of The Young Elites, the world has been ravaged by a blood plague. The plague kills all adults. Some children come out of the plague unscathed; others come out marked as malfettos. Some of these malfettos have special abilities and are known as Young Elites. Both malfettos and Young Elites are hated by the majority of society. Archives
October 2016
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