I love this kind of representation, especially in fantasy where it’s often ignored. There is also a bisexual side character, a relationship between two of the female side characters. Marie Lu has said that she would be considered Persian in our world. The main character, Adelina, is a woman of colour, as is her sister. It’s littered with characters representing marginalized peoples, which was a huge plus from me. Diverse fantasyįans of books such as Six of Crows which tell fantasy stories through a diverse cast will enjoy The Young Elites. Despite this, these are not unsympathetic characters, each one has struggled within the confines of their society and so you address them with pity rather then hate. Rather then our protagonist being a person righteous person seeking justice, she is a cruel and hard, but still seeking her own sense of justice.Įvery character in The Young Elites is morally ambiguous, and even the ones we are positioned to trust are revealed as being flawed and possessing some less then desirable quality – almost everyone is jealous, manipulative, cruel or cold. A unique villains journeyįor me, the highlight of this series is that it very much inverts the heroes journey. She is soon inducted into The Young Elites – a group of powered malfetto determined to overthrow the government that oppresses them. Adelina decides to flee her fathers house – and in doing so, discovers a secret power she never knew about. The illness has left her with a scarred face, and her father hates her status as a malfetto, especially since she never developed any powers he could exploit.

The afflicted are called ‘ malfetto’, and Adelina, the protagonist, is one of them.

The Young Elites is a high-fantasy novel set in a world where a illness has recently swept the land – giving the afflicted strange deformities and in some rare cases, special gifts. The Young Elites is her second trilogy, and not only my favourite series of hers, but also one of my favourite series of all time. Marie Lu feels like a very underrated author to me – she’s completed two incredibly high quality series but never seems to get enough praise for them.

(The Young Elites 5*, The Rose Society 5*, The Midnight Star 4*) Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers (2014-2016) Books in Series: The Young Elites (1), The Rose Society (2), The Midnight Star (3).

The young elites series