Review Wednesday: The Rose Society by Marie Lu

Amazon  Goodreads  Book Depository  Barnes and Noble

The Young Elites #2

Goodreads Blurb:

"Once upon a time, a girl had a father, a prince, a society of friends. Then they betrayed her, and she destroyed them all.

Adelina Amouteru’s heart has suffered at the hands of both family and friends, turning her down the bitter path of revenge. Now known and feared as the White Wolf, she flees Kenettra with her sister to find other Young Elites in the hopes of building her own army of allies. Her goal: to strike down the Inquisition Axis, the white-cloaked soldiers who nearly killed her.

But Adelina is no heroine. Her powers, fed only by fear and hate, have started to grow beyond her control. She does not trust her newfound Elite friends. Teren Santoro, leader of the Inquisition, wants her dead. And her former friends, Raffaele and the Dagger Society, want to stop her thirst for vengeance. Adelina struggles to cling to the good within her. But how can someone be good when her very existence depends on darkness?

Bestselling author Marie Lu delivers another heart-pounding adventure in this exhilarating sequel to The Young Elites."

 

Review:

One of the things that I've been loving about this series is how we get to watch Adelina fight her power even as she tries to embrace it.  Her power feeds on darkness, thereby feeding her.  However, she still tries to justify her horrific actions as actions with good intentions.  The revelation at the end explains it all perfectly when she stands in the throne room.

I also really loved seeing how the real villain developed.  At first, you think it's Teren and everything he stands for.  Then you think it's the lady whom he serves.  Then things take a turn and you think it's really the Daggers before you finally realize that the real demon is herself.

The last lines are simply amazing:

“In the silence, I sit alone on my throne and wait eagerly for all the satisfaction and triumph to hit me. I wait, and wait, and wait.

But it doesn't come.” 

Switching gears a little bit, I really liked reading from Raffaele's perspective.  We get to know a bit of his backstory and what he thinks about Adelina's plot.  I was really interested in Raffaele in the first book so I was really glad when we finally got to see things from his perspective.  In general, the different POV's helped a lot.  They really moved the story along and told new sides of the story so we could understand every aspect.

I actually liked how some scenes weren't clear (strangely enough).  It displayed the extent to which Adelina's power was muddling everything in her mind - especially when the story was told from her perspective.

I already touched on this a bit, but the conclusion was perfect.  She accomplished her goal, but not in the way that she needed too.  Or maybe she had the wrong goal all along.  The point is, because this is a trilogy, I liked the way that Marie Lu avoided middle-book syndrome by allowing Adelina her triumph.

The Final Verdict:

Overall, this is a simply stunning read.  The POV's made the story flow quite nicely and the plot line is wonderful.

5 stars

Quotes:

“Once upon a time, a girl had a father, a prince, a society of friends. Then they betrayed her, so she destroyed them all.” 

“But true rulers are not born. We are made.”  

“We are drawn to stories,” he says in a soft voice, “and every scar carries one.”

“What is the point of searching for love, when love is nothing but an illusion?”

“In the silence, I sit alone on my throne and wait eagerly for all the satisfaction and triumph to hit me. I wait, and wait, and wait.
But it doesn't come.”