A review by eesh25
The Midnight Star by Marie Lu

4.0

4.5 Stars

This was the third and final book in The Young Elites series and it starts off a year after The Rose Society ended.

Adelina is queen and she's not a very good one. She wants to take over the world in classic power-hungry psychopath style. And it doesn't help that she's a schizophrenic, power-hungry psychopath, who thinks she's been blessed by the gods to do whatever she wants. She's already driven away her sister and is now in a very dark place with the voices in her head.

And there's something going wrong with the world so now the Elites have to find a way to fix it.

Now, from the above synopsis, I think it's pretty obvious that I don't like Adelina. I never have. I guess I'm a little harsh but I don't condone her actions no matter what she suffered. There's a quote in the book:

"You cannot use cruelty against yourself to justify cruelty to others."

It rings very true to me, it's my favourite quote from the series, and it explains my issues with Adelina in a nutshell. There's another quote that's not from this series and is my favourite quote period, which also explains the same:

"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

Ah, good ol' Dumbledore... Anyway, I'm writing all this because I want to discuss the end of Adelina's story in a non-spoiler way. And I liked how her story ended. I would've tweaked one little thing but I understand why the author did what she did. Also, the series ended with a folktale that was open to interpretation (smart move, Ms Lu) and I'm chosing to believe it was only a story, an exaggeration. Things just wouldn't seem right to me otherwise.

As for the other character, I'm happy with how their stories ended as well. I liked how they were portrayed in this novel, and the two highlights, for me, were Rafaele and Teren. Rafaele because he's interesting and wise, and Teren because he's also interesting, and because I can't help but feel sorry for him.

The story, in general, was really good and I can't imagine the series ending in any other way. I really liked this book and this series, how it was written, its dark tone, the world, the characters and what the author is saying through it: to always choose goodness.

Overall, I loved this series, just liked I loved Legend, and I can't wait to see what Marie Lu will write next.