I am back with another book review, today it is The Midnight Star by Marie Lu. In keeping with my 2017 Reading Resolution, I am finishing off as many started series as I can. The latest achievement on that list was finishing the Young Elites series.
I don't really want to get too into a synopsis/overview for this one because it is the third and final book in the series and I want to keep this fairly spoiler free, so I will just say this: In this conclusion, we see a new side of Adelina, a side maybe not as dark as she has been in the previous books, and an unlikely group of allies working together.
There is definitely a lot of character development, especially on the part of Adelina. She begins to see that darkness may not be the answer to her problems and that she may have made some mistakes along the way. As much as I loved Adelina in the previous books, especially The Rose Society, I was glad that she found some peace in this final book. While her darkness was intriguing and I enjoyed her character immensely in the other books, she is able to see the consequences of her actions a little clearer. Lu does a great job of shaping Adelina's character, particularly coming from such a dark place in the last book. She creates a believable development in Adelina that I was able to appreciate.
I won't get into plot specifics, but I felt like not a lot happened in this book plot wise. Everything just kind of centred around one goal. This book is very character driven, and while I don't always love books like that, I think Lu was able to focus on the characters and pull it off.
I found the ending to be satisfying - I wasn't able to predict what was going to happen. I know some people don't like those kinds of endings, but for me, it made sense. Adelina made her choice because of the person she had become, and she has to live with that choice.
One thing that I found myself really enjoying in this book, that I don't know if I noticed as much in the previous ones was the mythology Lu creates. It was reminiscent of the few Greek myths that I know, but with a different, darker twist. I would love to see a collection of the myths or something to go along with the series.
Overall, I enjoyed this book not necessarily for plot, but for Adelina's character development.