Review: The Rose Society by Marie Lu

Title: The Rose Society
Author: Marie Lu
Series: The Young Elites #2
Genre: Ya/Fantasy/Super Powers
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: October 13th, 2015
Edition: Hardcover, 398 pages
Source: Purchased
Purchase: Amazon US | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | BAM | iBooks

Synopsis:

   Once upon a time, a girl had a father, a prince, a society of friends. Then they betrayed her, and she destroyed them all.

   Adelina Amouteru’s heart has suffered at the hands of both family and friends, turning her down the bitter path of revenge. Now known and feared as the White Wolf, she flees Kenettra with her sister to find other Young Elites in the hopes of building her own army of allies. Her goal: to strike down the Inquisition Axis, the white-cloaked soldiers who nearly killed her.

   But Adelina is no heroine. Her powers, fed only by fear and hate, have started to grow beyond her control. She does not trust her newfound Elite friends. Teren Santoro, leader of the Inquisition, wants her dead. And her former friends, Raffaele and the Dagger Society, want to stop her thirst for vengeance. Adelina struggles to cling to the good within her. But how can someone be good when her very existence depends on darkness?

Review:

Possibly my favorite thing about this series is that it is not a hero story. Adelina is an antihero, borderline antagonist. And I love that she isn't a hero. She is not kind, she is not forgiving, she is cruel. But she still deep down cares. She hates what Teren and the Inquisition are doing to people like her especially the Malfettos without power, and she is willing to do whatever it takes to bring them down. 

After being betrayed by everybody, from her father and her sister; to the new family she found in The Daggers. The small amount of kindness she has is getting smaller.

I loved reading her journey in this book. She starts to struggle with what she wants after meeting Magiano. He starts to lighten her heart again, but she still is holding on to the love she had for Enzo. I liked seeing the kindness that she could have had, had her father not tortured her, or at the very least had her sister not abandoned her to their father's treatment by blocking Adelina's power. 

I really started to dislike Raffaele in this book. He thinks himself to be so righteous, but from how things ended in the first book and after some revelations in the second book, he is far from it. He is very unkind and selfish, and somethings he does furthers the implication that he might be in love with Enzo is that Raffaele pushes people away from Enzo. Anyone that could present a threat to being his right hand. He is annoyingly self-righteous, and I do not like him for it.

The Baelish Queen, I also find her frustrating. The thing with all these characters is that they are all morally corrupt, but Adelina is the only one who admits who she is. The Daggers think themselves to be the heroes, but they cast people out who they deem unworthy. The Inquisition, Teren to be exact, while he views himself as an abomination he thinks he is doing holy work by murdering people who he thinks aren't pure. And the Queen, she is just petty and vain. We don't really get to see anything exactly from her eyes, only from Teren's eyes and he is completely obsessed with her and thinks she is perfection.

I currently don't know how I feel about Violetta, Adelina's sister. She might be the only one who isn't a complete garbage person, but she is also very weak in many ways. Her power can block powers from others, but she stood by and let her sister be tortured by their father, she remained quiet didn't even tell Adelina that they had powers just stood there and did nothing. I kind of don't like her for being weak, and I don't understand how she can be that weak-willed.

I hope to read things from both Violetta and Magiano's characters in the third book. I have been slightly spoiled for the ending of the series when I was looking up how to spell some of the names without flipping through the book, but I don't know how any of it happens, so I'm fine. It hasn't ruined the book for me. I am excited and sad that this series is almost over for me.