Adelina Amouteru is one of the survivors of a terrible disease called the blood fever that killed every adult who got infected and marked the few surviving children, making them malfettos. Malfettos like Adelina are despised and excluded from society, sometimes even hunted. Adelina soon discovers that the blood fever hasn't just brought her suffering, but also a gift: a magical and strong power, which makes her one of the Young elites and gives her the opportunity to seek revenge against all those who've wronged her.
"I am tired of being used, hurt, and cast aside. It is my turn to use. My turn to hurt."
When I started The young elites I had literally no idea what's it about and only picked it up because so many people said how amazing and unique this series is. Because of my high expectations I was a bit disappointed since the book is for the first half basically like every other YA fantasy novel and while that definitely doesn't mean it's bad, it just wasn't what I've expected and what I've wanted to read. But towards the ending, The young elites gets suddenly very dark very quickly, which I honestly absolutely loved. The concept of having the main character start out as a hero and turn more and more into a villain is just super intriguing. Since you tend to get attached to the main character in general as a reader, you are constantly questioning yourself during this series whether you really should support and root for the main character. It brings you in a bit of a moral dilemma and kind of forces you to think a lot about your idea of ethics. The plot in general is quite fast-paced and I felt at no point in any way bored. I liked the writing as well as the worldbuilding, even though I was a bit confused where exactly which character was at some points during the story (but that's probaly just because I was too stupid to understand the map at the beginning of both books). One thing I really didn't like however is how short both books are. The first one is about 350 pages, the second only slightly longer and at least in my opinion, that's just a bit too short for a fantasy novel, especially because I'm used to reading fantasy books with at least 500 pages. I usually wouldn't mind that much, but The young elites series has so much potential and it'd be simply great to have a longer story and to explore it inmore depth.
The best thing by far about this series are definitely the characters. All of them are super interesting and intriguing and actually feel like realistic characters since they all have some kind of backstory and none of them is completely good or evil. The main character Adelina Amouteru is a fantastic character. She's completely different and incredbly complex and something that makes her so special and interesting is her internal dialogue, that becomes even more present in the second book. What I really admire about Adelina is how she manages to turn horrible experiences into advantages. The abusive childhood she had to suffer through didn't break her, but only helped to make her stronger. Despite being sometimes afraid of the darkness inside her, she uses it for her power rather than pretending it's not there. I think these examples just show how much of a strong character Adelina is and honestly, I was in equal parts slightly terrified of her and also sympathised with her a lot. I won't go into any detail about the other characters to avoid spoilers, but I can definitely tell you that they're amazing and reading about them is truly phenomenal.
I am genuinely so excited for the third and last book in the series called The midnight star and can barely wait for October to get my hands on it. Hopefully I've motivated you to pick up this series and you'll enjoy it as much as I have!
Rating:
The young elites: 4/5 ✹
The rose society: 4.5/5 ✹
I hope you enjoyed this review. Have a fantastic day!
Leah
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