manonswife 's review for:

The Young Elites by Marie Lu

3.5

adventurous challenging dark fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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I loved reading this book, and safe to say i flew through it. adelina is such a compelling main character. her morals are so grey and so dark, it feels wrong to root for her at times. her thoughts about others, even her sister is surrounded by hate, even when she does not kinda mean it. in the words by author, it makes sense that adelina is a villian ish, and we are kind of following the villain's journey, that is such an interesting pov. most of the books that i have read are like hero's journey, or at most morally grey character's journey. this book might as well be a first villian pov for me. similarly, adelina's powers are so unique, and it suits her so well. her darkness and her illusions, the way she has power over so many niches, and even as a beginner magic yielder, she is able to conjure these complex illusions. her sister's powers are interesting too, and it makes sense that she was hiding her sister's power all these years. the power to idk shield, and take away someone else's power. i really did not expect enzo to die, he was so such a vital character, and the author made us believe that he is important in adelina's journey and that he would somehow be up there in the throne by the end of the series. i think as a reader i did not expect an ending where the villain is so evidently wining. the epilogue also captivated me wholly. the maeve girl and her power to actually bring back people from the dead, although the people who got brought back are some ways or other different. i do not remember lucient character a lot, i just know that she is wind walker, and there is definitely some sort of romance going between the princess and her. raffaele was not that interesting to me personally, he kind of felt shallow, and it felt like he was there is he was important yet so boring.  i did like gemma's character. i feel like the dante character was right all along with how he felt about adalina. all in all, i have to admit that teren is also very interesting, and i think that he has much to do. altho no a big fan of how he would literally bark for the queen. so excited to read more about the beldain kingdom where girls rule lol. i literally ate this book so fast and i loved it. so fun to read.