Hello Humans! Finally, it is time for round three of my journey through all things Marie Lu and also for the final book in The Young Elites series! It’s been a journey I can tell you that and I’m excited to get to reading and reviewing Legend and the rest of that trilogy (and then I might reward myself by purchasing Warcross we shall see!). I enjoyed the first two books in this series so I’m looking forward to sharing my thoughts on the ending.
Warning: the following may contain spoilers for both The Young Elites and The Rose Society but will be spoiler free for The Midnight Star.
Goodreads Summary:
Adelina Amouteru is done suffering. She’s turned her back on those who have betrayed her and achieved the ultimate revenge: victory. Her reign as the White Wolf has been a triumphant one, but with each conquest her cruelty only grows. The darkness within her has begun to spiral out of control, threatening to destroy all she’s gained.
When a new danger appears, Adelina’s forced to revisit old wounds, putting not only herself at risk, but every Elite. In order to preserve her empire, Adelina and her Roses must join the Daggers on a perilous quest—though this uneasy alliance may prove to be the real danger.
Ending a series such as this is never easy. If you’ve set up your character to go on a deep dark journey into evil-ness then it’s quite hard to pull it together in such a way that your character doesn’t completely fail (thus making all the work you’ve put in over the first two books worthless) or having an utterly hopeless ending that leaves everyone else in a horrible situation. Marie Lu somehow manages to avoid both these endings and while it isn’t an utterly satisfying conclusion to this series it is still masterfully done.
I won’t lie to you, I saw this ending coming from the end of book one…there are certain tropes that are just very predictable. If you’re looking to be totally bamboozled by the ending to a book then this isn’t that story. As I say, it’s well done, it just didn’t surprise me.
I’m still utterly obsessed with both Adelina and Violetta (though Violetta doesn’t have as much to do in this story she is certainly pivotal to the plot and her ending gave me all kinds of feelings). Adelina continues to grow in ways I didn’t think she would. I liked how her descent into evil and ‘madness’ kept on escalating through the book. It was very Shakespearian (I’m thinking back to going to see King Lear at the Globe back in October of 2017) and definitely worked with the rest of the trilogy.
The other characters also have their time to shine. Magiano, Raffaele and Terren feature heavily in this story and continue to be amazing. I love that Marie Lu isn’t afraid to use characters other than her main protagonists to escalate the plot.
One of the things I have always liked about this series is that it never feels like a superhero novel (though it easily could have done). These characters have powers but their powers never define them, they are just one aspect of their personalities. It is most certainly the characters who define and drive this story and I couldn’t ask for more.
So, here (at the end of all things) should you read this? I would wholeheartedly recommend this series to anyone who enjoys YA fantasy and who likes quick and easy reads. It’s not going to take you weeks and weeks to finish the series (though it is taking me a long time to schedule these reviews) and you will have a fun time reading them.
My rating: 4/5 stars
All opinions are my own.
What say you? Have you read and enjoyed The Young Elites? Let me know in the comments below!
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