The Rose Society (The Young Elites #2)

Adelina's mental degradation is clear to see as soon as the book starts. How constant dark thoughts that keep returning invade her being, coupled with hallucinations (or maybe her power subtly taking over her mind) keep her from feeling normal. Three weeks have passed since the end of the first book, and only pain and suffering is left for the two sisters. They aren't just sitting there and letting the world screw them over, they are attempting to fight back. They have run away to a place much safer than they were before, but they are looking for other elites to join them in their cause since the daggers have obviously abandoned them.

This book switches between the point of view of Adelina and Raffaele, so we can see two sides of the same coin. They both want the same thing, but they are going to be going about it in a different way from the other, and one is significantly more experienced in this field than the other. There is, however, another perspective within this and that is Teren. The one who believes that he was brought into the world to remove all the Elites from this world although he is one himself.

This character changing is something that Marie Lu is really good at, having done it in her book, 'Legend' and the subsequent series that arose from that book. I am not the biggest fan of having multiple protagonists, but with the way she does it, (how she never says 'I' while using another perspective) and how excellently she executes it I am not opposed to her adding this to the books.

There is a lot going on in the relationship between Violetta and Adelina. There is a lot of strain, and resentment (the latter particularly on Adelina's side) but there is also a deep love and bond between the two. Moments such as when her sister is getting close to a man called Sergio she starts feeling jealous that he is taking her sister's attention away. It isn't particularly healthy, but it is a definitive sign of a bond between the two. The main thing that is hurting their relationship is how Adelina handles the people and her willingness to kill. She wasn't like that before, but after so many things happened to her in quick succession, she has rightfully started to break down. The only difference between her and any other person breaking down is that she has powers that can inflict extreme amounts of pain on people, and get them to kill themselves. Rather than a support system, she is able to get her revenge and take over the whole kingdom, which is her only goal. As long as she and her sister are safe she doesn't hold much regard for life - although if another person can be easily saved and they are considered by her to be one of 'her people' then she is more than willing to help with whatever the problem is.

Adelina starts to grow closer to the Elite they had been looking out for - and had managed to barely convince to join them after killing a ruler of society - and they end up kissing. Through this, it is revealed how much she still misses Enzo, as she constantly has to remind herself how he isn't Enzo and is completely different. It is unfair to him but is something that she cannot get away from, especially when she has all the voices in her head convincing her that certain things are right and wrong and influencing her decisions. But within this, she also starts to fall deeper into her dark thoughts. The voices become louder and more intrusive, and her ability to kill without remorse (even feeling happy at first) is something that has come to fruition and that cannot be denied. While in a heightened state after killing someone she even loses control over herself, wanting to kill more and nearly going after her sister. She reigns herself back in, but comments on the fact that she is already forgetting the face of the man she killed, showing that she is growing cold to such drastic action as killing someone.

The relationship between The Queen and Teren slowly starts to turn sour as he comes to learn that her supposed 'hatred' for all the malfetto's was just because that stance was useful to her at the time and they were getting in her way. Now that Raffaele has proposed an alliance between the two she is more than willing to comply with that request, provided they become loyal to her. This obviously caused a rift to start to form between The Queen ad Teren, mostly from The Queen's side as he is unwilling to change his view and even goes directly against The Queen's orders because he thinks it is what she would want. After a night when Raffaele sleeps with her, Teren, in a fit of rage, aims to kill him but gets caught by The Queen and demoted from his post as her most important soldier.

After a confrontation between the Roses and the Daggers, Enzo is revived and tethered to Adelina (while she has disguised herself as Raffaele) and they fight, only stopping because the inquisition are arriving. Raffaele locks himself in his room, and while it seems to the others that he is sulking, he is actually doing research as well. He is wondering why Lucent's wrist seemed like it was broken from the inside. When he looks at his old text labelling the feeling of every Young Elite that had joined up with them he realises why. Her bones had been previously described as light and airy. Although now that she has used her powers a lot more they are more brittle and hollow. This means that the more the Elite use their power the more they start to become consumed in a way that could relate to their power. For example, it would perfectly explain why Adelina is slowly starting to fall into madness and seeing things that aren't there; because her ability to tell real from fake is diminishing. This would explain the voice in her head, seeing things when they aren't actually there, her constant mood changes, and her joy when murdering people. This is all related to her mental deterioration.

With this in mind, Adelina ends up in a situation where they have captured Teren, but instead of killing him, she takes him with assurances that she would rather die than see the Daggers rule the kingdom. He foolishly believes her and once they enter the throne room she manipulates him and not only amplifies his anger but also forces images into his head of The Queen with Raffaele. As a final nail in the coffin, she makes it look like The Queen is a malfetto causing Teren to kill her. She only lowers the illusion after the fact. After running away in the chaos, they fight in the sky, Adelina and her crew with the Daggers who just arrived a bit later on. In the ensuing fight, Gemma is killed and we can really see the split in emotions between her love for her friend, and her delusions over why they hold hostility towards her and her indifference to them. She even assumes, that when Gemma turns around on her ship while they were flying next to each other it was because she wanted to slow down the ship and talk to Adelina which just is only realistic in a fantasy world.

When Enzo was first training her in the first book it was mentioned that she wasn't getting a hold of her power because she wasn't feeling threatened enough even while she was getting beaten, and losing the fights and I think this is one trait that has always been there. One that would explain her indifference towards the death of her friend. She doesn't view reality from the same permanent fixture that we do. Only this time the effect is amplified a lot, and she is willing to brush things off that are as significant as her friend's death because she believes in her cause forgetting that after she accomplishes her goal what is left for her if all her friends are dead?

This comes into effect once she takes over the throne, having forced Enzo to burn all the troops that had come alongside Maeve, killing them all. She has captured Teren, although she is unwilling to kill him and she has a conversation with her sister where Violetta tells her about Raffaele's conclusion about how their power is draining them and Adelina doesn't believe her, the voices in her head now coming out of her own mouth and saying what they want to say. Violetta removes her power and a fight ensues where Violetta ends up giving the power back and running away. I thought that the imagery created in the scene after where Adelina is sitting on her throne, waiting for the satisfaction to come in knowing that she has now achieved what she had been looking to do this whole time but as she waits, and waits some more nothing ever comes. I can just imagine the image of her sitting on the throne, a deranged smile on her face that alters turns into sobbing.

There were some parts of this book that I didn't like as much, such as the fighting using her power. I thought it was a little basic, and it felt like the same thing was happening, although it was always described differently, and there wasn't really any variation of her power failing or anything (while in a fight) which I thought was something that could have been done to add an extra point of interest and tension to the book. I did like how Marie Lu showed the deterioration into madness that eventually drove her sister away, and the explanation of how their bodies weren't meant to handle this much power which is why they are breaking down the more they use them made a lot of sense to me. I thought there could have been a few more scenes where her power started to betray her in crucial moments and it messed up something that they were trying to do.

The story, for me at least, wasn't the most compelling for some reason. The constant going to different places, fighting, maybe recruiting someone and then leaving to another place wasn't something that I particularly enjoyed.

Overall this book was pretty good, and I would recommend it, and the first two books (as they are what I have read so far) of the series. It has been well executed so far, but something has pulled me away from the characters and I don't feel that usual bond that I always get when reading stories - especially trilogies.

7.3/10