After reading
her previous series and the synopsis of this book, I thought that Marie Lu’s
newest work, The Young Elites, was
going to completely blow me away. Much to my dismay, I was greatly
disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, the book wasn’t absolutely horrible. It just didn’t live up to the
expectations that I set for it since I loved her Legend series so much.
When she
was young, a terrible blood fever spread all over the country, leaving some of
the survivors marked with strange otherworldly powers and physical
imperfections. These were called the malfetto
and they were persecuted and killed when they showed signs of supernatural
powers, and Adelina was one of the unlucky ones. Treated as an abomination for
her entire life, she grew up estranged from her father and unmarked sister. One
day, her father decides to sell her to a wealthy merchant, but she runs away
before that can happen and accidently gets her father killed when her powers of
illusion finally emerge for the first time and spook some horses. She is about
to be burned at the stake when a group of malfettos,
the Young Elites, saves her. This group opposes the government and seeks to
create a world where malfettos can
live in peace. Their leader just so happens to be the crown prince, and when
they test Adelina for the powers that she aligns with, they are all dark and
sinister. Meanwhile, she is haunted by the ghost of her father as her powers
grow stronger and stronger, as do her dark alignments with them. Will Adelina
be the hero of the story? Or will she end up being the villain instead?
So first
let’s talk about the “heroine” Adelina. Honestly, she’s more like the
anti-heroine. She was not the best-developed character I’ve ever seen, and she
felt very two-dimensional. Her character was created with little emotion behind
it, and it was quite obvious; I didn’t become attached to her in the slightest,
nor did I really root for her, which is typically the type of reaction that a
main character should evoke. I understand that this book is actually meant to
portray the story of the villain, but it was extremely difficult to feel any
empathy for her; she created all of her own problems and she was repetitive,
complaining about situations nearly of her own creation. Honestly, the one of the only good things about this entire
book was Raffaele. He was sweet, kind, and pretty much the only good person in
this story. Another thing that was
completely flat was the romance. She’s supposed to have a romance with the
prince, and love him so dearly, yet it seemed shallow and completely
superficial; it wasn’t a satisfying love story in the least. That is a good
word to describe this book: unsatisfying.
That being said, there were also some very
interesting aspects, like the different powers that each of the characters had.
Some were a bit cliché, like the prince’s ability to control fire, but
Adelina’s power of illusion was a more unique power that I don’t think I have
ever read about in a book before (that is not to say they don’t exist, I just
have never read any). The ending of the story also intrigued me, but not the
part that dealt with the main character; it was the afterword that really
interested me, the part that talked about an entirely different character. I
found her far more interesting than the main and I only read about her for a
few pages. So, she is the only reason that I will read the next book when it
comes out, and I really hope that Marie Lu steps it up in this next one and
blows me away!
Unsatisfying, but hopeful for the next one! 3 Smileys!!
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