Monday, October 13, 2014

2014 book 241

Marie Lu's The Young Elites
I enjoyed Lu's Legend, though never got around to reading the rest in that series. This is the first in a new series, and I figured I'd give it a try--it's about a land where a horrible fever killed many adults and disfigured many children--though gave a few of those children strange powers. And a few of /those/ have banded together to form the titular Young Elites. Our protagonist is one of the disfigured (she's lost an eye and has a scarred face), treated pretty horribly by her father and society in general, when the Elites rescue her and decide to train her (she has powers of illusion). At first, she's interesting--she's motivated by fear and anger, and longs for power--but Lu puts her in a stupid position that I found very frustrating. I can see that I'm supposed to be sympathetic and feel that the protagonist is torn, but instead I thought she was an idiot. Of course, I'm predisposed to hate plotlines that could be cleared up with one honest conversation. Still, the worldbuilding/political stuff is pretty interesting, and it ends strongly. Not sure whether I'll check out the sequels. B.

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