The Young Elites by: Marie Lu

Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Fantasy
Published: October 7, 2014 by: G.P. Putnam
Pages: 355
Rating: 3 Stars
*review may contain spoilers*

The Young Elites is the first book in the Elite's series of fantasy books. The book follows Adelina Amouteru, a survivor of a deadly fever that sweeped across her nation a few years prior. Since then, she has been considered a "malfetto" in her family, because of the strange markings that the fever left upon her, and her missing eye. This causes Adelina's father to mistreat her, and as she fights back, she is sentenced to death. However, she is mysteriously saved by a group of hooded malfetto's who take her back to their hideout, and train her to become an "Elite" just like them. Together, they try to fight the nations' mission: to destroy all malfetto's, and their strange powers.

This book was quite different than any other fantasy that I have read. There was definitely a dystopia component to it, which made it a very unique read. To start with the positives, this book was very badass. As I have said before, a strong female character makes a book 10 times better, and I really got that in this book. Adelina was such a good character! She was amazing because she had so many struggles, but overcame them. She truly found her identity, and found somewhere where she belonged.

I also loved the strong male characters. Enzo Valenciano, an Elite, was such a brave individual. He was kind and loyal to his group and he was an amazing strategist. He wasn't like any other male lead that I've read about before. Even the antagonist, Teren Santoro, was very intelligent. It was terrible what he did to The Elites, but he still had his own struggles. I am convinced that he will come around for the better.

To the plot now, the book was quite interesting at the beginning, but deterred as it went along. I was very captivated at the beginning of the book, but I found that the middle was very slow. There was action throughout the book, but the middle just didn't do it for me. Then towards the end, things moved along quite fast again. So I'm kind of torn.

Overall, the characters of this book were amazing, the beginning and end were so clever, but the middle was hard to get through. This is why I rated it 3 stars.

Have you read The Young Elites? What did you think?

Emily @ Paperback Princess