The Young Elites

Book Title: The Young Elites

Author: Marie Lu
Series: The Young Elites #1

Date Started: December 2nd 2014

Date Completed: December 6th 2014

Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Adventure, Action

Rating: Three stars

Review:

The Young Elites was disappointing, mainly because of the expectation for Lu's writing. I think the biggest issues were the generic storyline and the transition into fantasy, and the huge gap between action-packed sci-fi that we're used to.

Adelina is a survivor of the blood fever. But now she is shunned as a malfetto, and feared by those around her. But after the death of her father, Adelina is picked up by a mysterious group of teenagers: all of them Young Elites, the malfettos gifted with dangerous abilities and the power to threaten the kingdom that detests them. But as circumstances start to turn against her, Adelina must choose if her loyalty belongs to these people, or to her family.

The big surprise on starting this novel was the...well that lack of flair in the writing. This shocked me because it's Marie Lu: the queen of vibrant, action-packed, awesome writing. And when things didn't really get better as I kept reading I think I figured out why. Lu's Legend series gravitates around action-packed advanced sci-fi stories and worlds. Because we already have some sort of automatic understanding to a sci-fi world we can go along with it reasonably easily. But fantasy worlds depend a lot more on progressive world-building so we can learn why characters are the way they are before we really get into the action. I think Lu found this different style a bit hard and so we end up having to work it out with patchy information as we go along, which takes away from focus on the characters and story obviously.

There was nothing wrong with the plot line in The Young Elites, but the concept was generic and I felt like I had read the first half of the book a million times before. The world-building was really lacking, and I think that really took away the potential this story had, because there just wasn't enough development and understudying of what it meant to be a malfetto; what the politics behind the crown were etc. There was the typical instalove ridiculously early on and I really didn't feel any threat until the approach of the climax.

Having said that, the end of this book was great. I felt the usual Marie Lu coming back when the action picked up and things didn't depend so much on the world because the climax definitely centered around the characters. I was a bit disappointed that I saw the big twist coming, but I do really appreciate what it meant to the story. I also loved the fact that Adelina DID become dangerous, instead of just being warned she would for the whole story like most books.

Aside from the frankly cheesy names, the characters weren't bad. But I didn't really connect with any of them either and I don't think they were developed enough.

Adelina annoyed me through the whole book really, and I found her actions and thoughts didn't really match up and just generally she was a bit dumb. But I do appreciate the inclusion of a less kick-ass heroine that still is strong and has been through a lot in the past.

Enzo I think could have been a great character, but I think he wasn't developed as anything other than a love interest or a leader.

I loved Raffaele. I just liked him and the wise-figure influence he has on everyone else. I think he was the only character that stood on his own away from a romantic/skill-set he had.

This book was really disappointing at the beginning, and I did get bored throughout most of the book. The big fall down was the fast-paced story, but the very slow progress in the actual story and the characters. When we began to reach the climax, things got so much better so quickly - I assume because it fell back into Lu's speciality of action-packed drama. Otherwise, however, I have to say the pacing just wasn't right.

The Young Elites did disappoint me, but not to the point where I won't consider reading the next book. Quite a few people have felt the same as me I think, so I'm going to see if reviews say the next story is similar or better before I actually pick it up. But I do think the series is going to get better, since following books don't rely so much on learning about the world. I think this book would actually be good for younger readers starting to get into fantasy, but perhaps not for readers that are experienced and lovers of the fantasy genre.

Image Source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20821111-the-young-elites