photo wishlist_zps2544b6d7.png

Thursday, July 4, 2019

Book Review: The Rose Society (The Young Elites, #2) by Marie Lu

.
BOOK review
Started on: 3 June 2019
Finished on: 21 June 2019

Title: The Rose Society (The Young Elites, #2)
Author: Marie Lu
Publisher: Putnam Books
Pages: 398 pages / 396 pages (e-book)
Year of Publication: 2015
Price: Rp 168,000 (https://www.periplus.com/)

Rating: 3.5/5
*for those who haven't read the first book, this review may contain spoiler.
Review for The Young Elites (The Young Elites, #1) by Marie Lu here.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Once upon a time, a girl had a father, a prince, a society of friends. Then they betrayed her, so she destroyed them all."
Adelina Amouteru has been abused, rejected, and betrayed by her family and friends. And it has left her heart cold, bitter, and hungry for revenge. She and her sister, Violetta, flees Kenettra to find other Young Elites in the hopes of building her own army of allies. Her goal is to strike down the Inquisition Axis, and ultimately to take vengence on Teren Santoro who has made her suffer. On the other hand, Adelina's former friends from the Dagger Society has their own plan to accomplish. They tried to stop Adelina's thirst for revenge; however, Adelina seems to be consumed by the darkness that continues to fuel her power.

"This is what I have fought so hard for, what I sacrificed and bled so much for. This is everything I ever wanted—revenge against my enemies for what they've done to me. And I've achieved it. My revenge is complete."

It took me so long to finish this book and write a review for it because these days I've been addicted to some TV shows ๐Ÿ˜‚. Now that I've finished everything and there's nothing else for me to watch, I'm finally back to my reading and reviewing game ๐Ÿ˜Ž. To be honest, this sequel was quite disappointing for me. I'm still not invested in both the story and characters; and the world building wasn't able to immerse me in it. It's an enjoyable read nonetheless, but I guess I expected something more because I loved Marie Lu's Legend series so much. When I'm halfway through this book, I was actually contemplating whether I should finish reading this series until the end or not, because I'm slowly losing interest. But I finally decided to see it through since I've come this far already, and I've never stopped reading a series midway before. I'm still hoping that the ending will turn out better than the first two books in this series. *fingers crossed* ๐Ÿคž
"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."
Still written in the same format as the previous book, the story continues after the events at the end of The Young Elites, in which Adelina and her sister, Violetta, ran away and in search of other Young Elites to build her own allies. This time we are introduced to some new characters: Magiano and Sergio, each of them possessing a different power that will aid Adelina in her mission to strike down the Inquisition Axis. Whilst Adelina is busy gathering allies, the Dagger Society is also setting up strategy to overthrow the throne, which was their initial goal before Enzo died. This time around, Raffaele is their new leader and he's teaming up with the Beldish queen, Maeve, to achieve his goal. These two groups will then go head to head as they cross path, forcing Adelina to do anything she can to get what she wants—and that includes harming her former friends.

The plot in this second book gets even darker than the previous one. The whispers in Adelina's mind gets wilder and more persuasive than before. It creates all sorts of illusions that strikes a deep-rooted fear in Adelina that made her lash out and strike fear into other people to make her feel stronger. But Magiano's existence brings light into these dark moments. He seems to understand what Adelina is struggling with and took care of her with compassion. Even Adelina found herself smiling whenever she's with Magiano. His presence was able to calm her nerves down. Magiano has officially replaced Enzo as my favorite character in this series ๐Ÿ˜‚. I also found the interaction between Sergio and Violetta quite sweet even though it's just some subtle gestures. Romance isn't the biggest theme in this series and it doesn't really have any importance related with the plot, but I was hoping someone would be able to bring Adelina out from her dark side. I guess she's just in to deep and no one will be able to redeem her, not even herself. Adelina's encounter with Teren was one of the darkest scenes in this book, especially when Adelina drove him into madness and Teren did something he would never have done himself. The battle scene towards ending was quite epic and it was really intense. The closing chapter is probably one of the best part of this book, when Adelina felt empty despite accomplishing everything that she wants. The ending convinced me to pick up the third and final book. I definitely need to see how Marie Lu is going to wrap up this really dark series ๐Ÿค”.
"It is better to have an enemy who will fight you in an open field then a lover who will kill you in your sleep."
"Fear motivates, more than love or ambition or joy. Fear is more powerful than anything else in the world. I have spent so long yearning for things—for love, for acceptance—that I do not really need. I need nothing except the submission that comes with fear. I do not know why it took me so long to learn this."
I can understand why some people really love this series, because Adelina is definitely not a typical young adult fantasy main character. She's truly a villain. Probably a super villain considering her incredible power in creating illusions. Some people really enjoyed this series because they're able to sympathize with Adelina's character. Unfortunately, I didn't really feel that way ๐Ÿค”. I don't know why. Nevertheless, as I've said earlier, I still enjoyed reading this book and was well entertained. Loved Marie Lu's writing even though I wasn't really fond of the plot. I'm going to pick up the third book right away because I can't wait to see what will happen next! I'm really hoping that Adelina will get a chance to redeem herself after everything that she's done. *fingers crossed again* ๐Ÿคž
"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."
by.stefaniesugia♥ .
 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...