The Midnight Star by Marie Lu
Genre: Fantasy
Published by: Penguin Books
Pages: 313
Format: ebook
Rating: ★★★
Series: The Young Elites (#1) | The Rose Society (#2)
I honestly don’t think I was ready for this series to end. It was one of my most anticipated releases for this half of the year! The Young Elites was one of the first books that I read this year, and I was immediately drawn in by the delicious cast of characters. I’m pretty sure everyone knows by now that one of this series’ USPs is that Adelina is a bit of a villainous protagonist, but not in a fantastical super villain way, more in a ‘this girl’s had a hard life that has forced her to make tricky decisions in sticky situations’. Some people will probably say that’s mellow, but I’ve always loved Adelina, and the bond she has with her sister. And, for me, book two was even better, so I was going in with HIGH expectations, let me tell you.
Okay, so high expectations was probably my first mistake. But, come on, we all fall victim to them sometimes. But I should reiterate that I still enjoyed this finale because of the character development. There wasn’t really any other way that this could’ve ended, and it being the last book in an incredibly wonderful trilogy, I don’t want to give too much away!
But I’m going to try and do my best to sum up the plot in the vaguest way possible:
After the discoveries in The Rose Society the Elites know that something is wrong, and they are in trouble. So, to fix everything – themselves and the world – they must pay the ultimate price, and this is harder for some than others. And most importantly of all, it’s not something they can do alone. Oh no. For this, they need everyone.
So, essentially it’s Elites roundup time, and I think this is where I had the majority of my issues. Everyone is in different places both figuratively and literally, which makes it kind of funny when Adelina and crew are like ‘Get in bitch, we’re going shopping’ to Meave, badass Queen forever. I felt like the chapters were so short and everything was moving so fast that no one really got the right amount of attention. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I want to say this is the first time we get a chapter from Magiano’s PoV and I don’t have any of these books physically since I borrowed them from a library, so I can’t check, but I really wanted more from him. This was supposed to be a big deal.
But, as I already hinted at in the introduction, I freaking love Adelina and Violetta. They’re relationship is what keeps this series alive for me, it’s the best. It’s like a super extreme version of Anna and Elsa’s relationship in Frozen. Which should NOT put you off, if any of you took it that way, because it’s brilliant. And come to think of it, I’m feeling much more settled about the ending when I think of them as Disney princesses.
So, let’s talk about the ending for a minute. I mean, I’m not mad about it in either sense of the word. I was wondering the whole way through why it was called ‘The Midnight Star’ and then the very end clears that up, and I was like…okay, this is bittersweet. This is coming from the author of the Champion beautiful heartwrencher, so…what was I expecting?
Overall, I think The Midnight Star was a pretty average conclusion. It wrapped things up in plausible way and gives quite a bit of closure to the fantasy world, so YAY. I just wish it could’ve been longer! So, I’m giving it a classic 3 star rating.
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