The Young Elites series (The Young Elites – The Rose Society – The Midnight Star) seems to be one of those “either you love it or you hate it”- series. I, for my part, am a total fan of it. I’ve already devoured Marie Lu’s Legend trilogy and then when I’ve heard of a new series I was so excited! The Young Elites is set in a world where a lot of people became sick, and either they died or they survived but were marked in some kind of way – scars, different hair colour, another eye colour, … These survivors are called malfettos and some of them have special abilities. The protagonist Adelina for example can create powerful illusions. But malfettos and those who have not been touched by the sickness hate each other and so a fight for a throne, a country, a world begins.
Why do I love this series?
First, I LOVE Adelina. She is not the classical “here to save the day”-YA heroine. Far from it actually. Her character is dark and twisted and she’s going slowly insane. Actually, she’s not even a heroine but the villain in this story. She is egoistic, she is strong and she is afraid. Her power makes her sick. It is so refreshing to read about this girl. I mean, I’ve been always drawn to dark characters who probably don’t act in the morally okay zone, but mostly they are antagonists. So I absolutely enjoyed reading about Adelina and her way downhill.
What’s more, not only Adelina’s character is great. We have a bunch of others who are all unique and more or less sane. All of them are quite torn. But nevertheless all of them are capable of love, of friendship and of loyalty. And I love seeing this, that characters aren’t just pure good or pure evil but all of them have a dark and a light side.
Also, the world! I love this world, I love the concept of the world. The gods, the people, the magic. Just, great! World building is A+. Story is wonderful. I am just completely over the moon with everything, as you can probably tell. And can we please talk about the end? Often, I’m a bit disappointed in the end of a series because so much more could have happened… but it didn’t. Not with The Midnight Star, the last book in the trilogy. The ending was just so damn fitting. It was not a good end nor was it a bad end exactly, but in my opinion it was a perfect end. Perfect for the series anyways. I cried a lot and I am still not over it. I probably never will, to be honest.
What about you? Have you read the series? Did you like it as much as I did?
