Published: October 11, 2016
Publisher: Putnam
Pages: 316 (Hardcover)
Series: The Young Elites #3
Source: Library
My Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
There was once a time when darkness shrouded the world, and the darkness had a queen.
Adelina Amouteru is done suffering. She’s turned her back on those who have betrayed her and achieved the ultimate revenge: victory. Her reign as the White Wolf has been a triumphant one, but with each conquest her cruelty only grows. The darkness within her has begun to spiral out of control, threatening to destroy all she’s gained.
When a new danger appears, Adelina’s forced to revisit old wounds, putting not only herself at risk, but every Elite. In order to preserve her empire, Adelina and her Roses must join the Daggers on a perilous quest—though this uneasy alliance may prove to be the real danger.
I can't believe how long it took me to start reading this series. Although, I'm kinda glad that I started it once all the books were released. I couldn't imagine how terrible it would have been to wait for the books to come out after the endings of the first and second books.While this book wasn't my favorite out of the entire series, it definitely evoked the most emotions.
The pacing of this book is fairly slow for the majority of it. It's not a long book by any means, but it still did take me some time to get through it. This was mainly because a large portion of the book was almost entirely the characters sitting around and talking. Not much was going on, it was all set up for the grand finale. Yes, the ending needed to be set up, but I wish it could have been done in a way that wasn't so slow. It wasn't boring, but I also wasn't itching to pick up the book every time I had to put it down.
The part that made me enjoy this book is the development that all of the characters seemed to go through. All of the Young Elites are struggling with the realization that their powers are slowly killing them. They're scared of that, as well as fighting each other. I actually really enjoyed Adeline's character in this book. She's clearly going mad and her new power has definitely gone to her head, but she's also still a person. She very clearly cares for people when she's clearheaded enough to function and it's honestly kind of sad how clear it is that she's losing herself.
I really loved Adelina's relationship with Magiano. At first, I didn't think that she was good enough for him and I couldn't really understand why he liked her in the first place, but once I got past that I really enjoyed them together. Magiano is so nice and sweet to her, I couldn't help but ship them.
The ending was by far the best part of this book. I won't spoil it, but I'm really glad it ended how it did because I honestly couldn't see how it could end any other way. It wasn't a shocking ending and sometimes that would bother me, but it felt like it nicely tied up the story and it also left me near tears.
I just really enjoy Marie Lu's books and I probably won't be hesitating to read any more of her books when they come out.
I'm so glad you enjoyed this, Erika! Haha yeah I was one of those people that read each book as they came out and it was TORTURE! I really loved how the author wrapped up the second book, though. That's honestly my favorite part of the whole series! I agree with you as well, though, that the pacing was a bit interesting in this book. I was really interested in the storyline and everything but there just wasn't a whole lot of drive. I also agree with you that the ending is so perfect! So heartwrenching but perfect all the same :)
ReplyDeleteLaura @BlueEyeBooks
I think I was hoping for a little more action than this book had and it left me kind of disappointed on that end. The ending more than made up for that though!
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