The Young Elites

“To love is to be afraid. You are frightened, deathly terrified, that something will happen to those you love. Think of the possibilities. Does your heart clench with each thought? That, my friend, is love. And love enslaves us all, for you cannot have love without fear.”

3.75 STARS

Well, this is me for mostly the entire book with anything concerning Adelina and her power hungry domination:

While also being like:

I can say, without doubt, this is the darkest YA I have ever had the pleasure of reading. It was captivating, unsettling, and seemed to plant hooks in your skin that you couldn't pull away from, no matter how dark the writing became. I thought that though many YA novels attempt to journey the antihero's road, this book truly understood the archetype and flourished with it. Though it did have a bit of a shaky start, by about a hundred and twenty pages in I really felt the thrill of the book, however the beginning execution attempt was rather interesting. I think what I found hardest about this book was being able to relate to the characters. The only person I really could connect with was Rafaelle, but there were still some major differences in approaching a problem, but no matter. Adelina is most definitely a badass slay of a lead, but with all her I TREMBLE WITH MY CRAVE OF POWER was just a little hard to deal with like seriously

HOWEVER, I think Adelina is still one of the most kickass characters I have come across and I love the path she's going on. I think that the next book, the Rose Society, will have her fall further and further from grace, maybe even coming up with an assassinating terrorist band on her own? Speaking of, I was uneasy, in a good way, with the fact that the Young Elites were by no means agood group; they kill innocents just like the government does and are essentially a terrorist group with superpowers, wonderful I know. I think I actually liked that the entire book was in a complete grey area: there were no definite 'bad guys' and 'good guys' because everyone had darkness inside of them, but everyone had some form of redemption to be gained as well. One of my biggest problems with Adelina was that I didn't like many of her choices. Like, she just killed her father and you're going to leave your defenseless (well, not so defenseless it seems) little sister ALONE!? You're just going to abandon her with no one to help her? I mean, I understand that your father hurt you and she let him, but she was trying to protect herself and not make it worse! And also, when Teren literally slithered in to the masquerade and she told no one, when she totally in any way could have and the Elites would have gone on a damn camping trip to slay all of Teren's men and the slimeball himself, that she needed help aggravated me throughout the entire book. But on to the positive. I think that this story is complex, thought provoking, and evocative to the darker emotions of the reader. The writing was crisp (if at times a bit choppy) but had a way of drawing in the audience and flooring them all at once. The characters were compelling, diverse, and intriguing. The only issue I had with the secondary characters were their names. I mean, next to the Reaper Starthief just seems kinda stupid, but perhaps that's my own personal opinion. Speaking of, I thought Enzo was one of the most interesting points of the book. He's the Crown Prince, but essentially disowned (but still with a shitload of money it seems) from his family because of the blood fever's malfetto mark and had a very, very interesting personality to me. He was enigmatic, commanding, but also almost as dark as Adelina, and I could very much see him ruling the kingdom, that is if Maeve can resurrect him. All in all, this was an extremely dark book and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone afraid of some questionable motives, an unrelatable protagonist-turned-antagonist (I just love those), and a slow beginning. BUT if you can stick with it, it is one of the most amazing reads of the year and unlike anything I've read before.

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