Book Review on "The Rose Society"


Book Review on "The Rose Society"
(Might contain spoilers, so be aware)

    "The Rose Society" is by Marie Lu and is a part of The Young Elites Trilogy. You may also know Marie Lu through the popular Legend Trilogy. I chose this book because I had enjoyed the Legend Trilogy and I like Marie Lu's style of writing. However, I did not realize it was the second book of the trilogy, so I was slightly confused about what was happening.  According to the blurb at the back of the book, the main character, Adelina Amoutera was having an enjoyable life. Though, her family, friends, and everyone else she loved betrayed and nearly killed her. She is now gathering other "young elites" and planning revenge on the one who almost killed her. This can be extremely intriguing for the reader to read the previous book, but I am not going to be talking about book one in this blog.

    After reading the first couple of chapters, I found Adelina to be an interesting character. She was accused of killing Enzo and feels bad because it was unintentional. "Adelina, why do you blame yourself for Enzo's death. I should have had better control over my illusions. I could've saved Enzo's life."(Lu 3). Based on context seems like he was Adelina's boyfriend. She is holding a grudge against many of the people (family, friends, etc) that accused her of killing Enzo, even though she did not, or at least not on purpose. It is not too shocking one traumatic could change one's personality, but I was surprised her personality was changed to that extent. Adelina does not trust anyone and does not want to use the power she contains for good. She is being taken over by darkness and it not stopping until she gets her revenge.

    Talking about characters, Mary Lu does a fantastic job at incorporating different character's points of view throughout the text. In this case, Lu shows how different young elites are living and dealing with society. Teren Santoro and Raffelle Lauret Bessette were the other two young elites mentioned and they both had different views about Adelina and what was happening in the story. Teren works for a queen (Queen Giulietta) and is tasked to hunt down the other young elites. One problem he has is he is an elite himself. He was also the one that actually killed Enzo, but does not know why he still thinks about it. "He rarely dwelled on those he killed, but Enzo...Teren shakes his head, unsure of why he keeps thinking about Enzo's death" (Lu 73).  Raffelle is also a young elite and works as the queen's advisor. He was the one that warned Enzo about Adelina. "He thinks back to the night when Enzo visited his chambers, when he had first warned the prince about Adelina" (Lu 30). Overall, I thought it was cool and interesting the author incorporated multiple viewpoints throughout the story.

    Overall, I thought the book was better than I thought, and I enjoyed the different points of view shown throughout the first couple of chapters. I liked how Marie Lu did not jump straight into the story and is slowly building it up. As of right now, I totally recommend this book for anyone, but I would read the first book of the series, "The Young Elites" before reading this one, so you can understand the context. Altogether, I hope this book keeps up the fantastic start and continues to be interesting and thrilling as I read the rest of it.  

-Timothy Park

Comments

  1. JoshOctober 8, 2021 at 4:54 PM

    I've read a few Marie Lu books before, and I've always found them to be really interesting. Never heard of this series before, but it sounds interesting and it fits pretty well in my favorite genre of books. It seems like these "Young Elites" are in a sort of competition, perhaps sort of similar to this other Marie Lu book that I've been meaning to read. I'll probably end up trying this series sometime soon, as it you described it to be very absorbing and that it incorporates different POVs throughout.

    -Josh

    (P.S. I know what my next blog book is going to be thanks to this lol.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. DavidOctober 15, 2021 at 9:20 PM

    The only Marie Lu books I've read so far are the Legend trilogy. But, I think I should check this one out! Sounds very interesting, and I like her writing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. LeylaMarch 7, 2022 at 6:58 PM

    I've heard awesome things about Marie Lu books, especially the Legend series. The Rose Society sounds super interesting as well. Thank you for reminding me to check out her books! I'm excited to read them.

    ReplyDelete

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