Fiction

Reviewed by Fariha

Read Fariha's other reviews of books in this trilogy:
Young Elites
Rose Society

*There won’t be any direct spoilers in this review but you should probably have read the first two books, anyway.

You cannot harden your heart to the future just because of your past. You cannot use cruelty against yourself to justify cruelty to others.

Good News & Bad News: Marie Lu knows how to end her trilogies with a bang but also knows how to kill her readers. I feel as though I am not even alive anymore. I am writing this review after my death, my funeral was yesterday and I’m surprised how good the Wi-Fi is, considering I’m in a coffin. (Okay, this scenario is running away from me, let’s stop.)

Marie Lu’s endings, both Champion and The Midnight Star, have been very bittersweet. I'm usually hesitant to read endings of series and trilogies because it can all go horribly wrong and ruin the series. However, I now know I really don't have to worry about that with Marie Lu's endings. They do not leave things hanging and give readers the proper closure they deserve but oh my gosh, do they destroy the reader’s heart anyway. In my opinion, Midnight Star was even better than Champion, so if you’ve read that and are about to read MS, strap yourselves in! It felt as though my heart had been broken a million and 1 times but has only been healed a million.

I am the nightmare.

This book starts epically. It is intense and dark and gruesome and makes your heart beat out of your chest. It was shorter than The Rose Society and much more fast-paced, which I appreciated. I am not joking when I say that I missed my station and rode the TTC for two more stops before realizing that I had been so caught up in an intense scene that I had forgotten about the real world. I am ashamed (because how Fariha? why?) but I also applaud Marie Lu (because how Marie? Why?).

None of us are saints. We can all do better.

This book I think was very plot driven with certain characters’ arcs. I do wish we got some more quality character development and interactions, though. The cast of characters in this trilogy is pretty big and I don’t think Marie Lu used that aspect to its full potential.

While we got to know some characters extremely well and they had character arcs to cry and die for, some characters I still barely know the names of, even after three books. Some characters I know in depth and some characters I forget exist until Marie Lu mentions them (which might be about once every 50 pages). I’m not talking about minor, minor characters, btw. I’m talking about side characters being treated as minor, minor characters. There are characters from Young Elites group, like Michael, and Sergio from Adelina’s own Rose Society, who I barely know even though they are there in various/most scenes. I just wish that wasn’t the case. I think some important characters were created to serve only one purpose and after that was done, they were there in the sidelines but were rarely mentioned or developed as characters.

After a lifetime of darkness, I want to leave something behind that is made of light.

I definitely don’t hate that romance in this book, or even the trilogy, but I didn’t really care for it until the very end of this book. Which was slightly strange because I loved Adelina and both of the guys she showed interest in. (Not that there is a love triangle in this book, just in general in the trilogy) I also wanted more of the queen and Lucent’s love and how they had to fight for it because that was extremely interesting. We got very little of that, which was disappointing; I wanted Marie Lu to explore their relationship just a little bit more. It was only mentioned about two to three times in the book, though.

We are doomed to be forever young.

This book definitely is a step up from Rose Society and receives a glowing 4/5 stars. It was action-packed and feels-inducing but certain aspects I wanted explored were not explored.

If you liked Legend, READ THIS TRILOGY. If you were meh about Legend, still give this trilogy a chance because, in my opinion, this trilogy is better.