Review: The Midnight Star by Marie Lu

Book: The Midnight Star
Author: Marie Lu
Series: The Young Elites #3 (final)
Genre: YA fantasy
Publisher: G.P. Putman's Sons Books
Pages: 316
Release: October 11th 2016

The thrilling finale to the New York Times bestselling Young Elites series from “hit factory” Marie Lu.

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 that she’s achieved.

Adelina’s forced to revisit old wounds when a new danger appears, putting not only Adelina at risk, but every Elite and the very world they live in. In order to save herself and 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.

Bestselling author Marie Lu concludes Adelina's story with this haunting and hypnotizing final installment to the Young Elites series. 

Goodreads / Amazon / Audible / iBooks

This book is the final conclusion to the unique story of my favourite villain protagonist, Adelina. Yes, that's right. The. Conclusion.

It's been a a while since the ending of the last book. Adelina has seized the throne and has been diligently working on conquering the rest of the nearby nations. But with her powers spinning out of control, she finds herself caught up in something bigger, one that will test everything everyone knows about the Young Elites...

Adelina was everything in this book. Yes, there was a plot, but it was really her struggle with everything that drove everything forward and made the story so great. I was curious as to how the author would write Adelina in this book, and expected some kind of drastic character growth of sorts. I will admit that the character growth Adelina goes through wasn't what I had anticipated (then again, if what I had anticipated had in fact come true, it wouldn't have been that great of a book), but it still definitely blew me away. And by blew me away, I mean pulled at my heartstrings one by one. Without going into spoilers, I do want to just mention how satisfied I was with her ending--it just felt...right. Especially since I had envisioned numerous endings for her. Her actual ending was written so perfectly, so beautifully. I'm really going to miss Adelina now that her story is over, and how true she stayed to herself.

Magiano remained to be one of my favourites. He was just...good. But he also let others see the meaning behind loving someone others thought evil. He proved that there is always good in someone, and that no matter that person, the goodness in them is worth loving. I just...yeah. We need more people like him, you know?

We got to see most of the cast from the previous books! Raffaele, Lucent, Maeve, Violetta, Sergio, Enzo, Teren, and a few others. It was nice to see them all, but not so nice to see what they all were going through. It really makes you wonder whether being an Elite and having powers is truly is worth it, given the discrimination they must live with and the other...circumstances surrounding their identity. Then again, I probably would still like to be an Elite, just because having powers would be super cool, so long as I don't die horribly because of it.

Much like the other two books, the third person present tense narration of characters other than Adelina threw me off. They were few and sparse, but I still found it difficult to read those chapters. It's just so strange. But in terms of plot and character development, they really helped flesh out all the other side characters!

The plot of the novel diverges from the initial plot of the original series. I mean, I get that in the end, the series ends with some kind of resolution for all the Young Elites, but at the same time, I was a bit disappointed that it didn't follow Adelina's triumph more. I was rather invested in Adelina's new role as queen that the sudden change in direction threw me off. But oh well.

We sadly are not introduced to any new Elites. However, we are introduced to the mythology behind the world, along with the stories of the Gods that have supposedly granted the Elites their powers. Though they were interesting to learn about, I did feel like there wasn't enough substance to fully latch onto. I had a hard time trying to remember all their names and what they stood for!

Can we please talk about Violetta? Please? Because everything I expected to happen to her happened, but in completely unexpected ways. As in, I expected X to happen to her, and though it did, I did not expect how X would actually happen to her. Oh, Violetta. If I'm going to be bluntly honest, I would love an entire series just about her. Like her perspective of the events of the series. Just something. Please?

That ENDING. I expected parts of it, yes, but the other part? Not at all. Not the part with Violetta. And especially not the final epilogue (GUYS, THE EPILOGUE). It really hammered home the idea of stories and folklore, and how tales will always remain to be passed onto those who are willing to hear them. I can't. I can't. I can't handle it, and I can't spoil it, so I'll just sit here quietly and pretend I live in that world instead.

And so, it pains me greatly to bid Adelina farewell. I'm really going to miss her, and how she fuelled the dark thoughts. Because we all have those dark, sinister thoughts, thoughts that we've been conditioned to never let out. But with Adelina, it always felt like a safe place to just embrace the darkness, to let your malicious side take over. It's definitely going to be difficult to find another protagonist I can enjoy so wickedly like hers!