Friday Reads: The Rose Society & The Iron Warrior!!

Hey there guys!

Friday is once again and even if for a moment I thought it was the first Friday of the new year, it's actually the second... Apparently I didn't realize Jan 1st was Friday *rolls eyes at self*

Anyways! It is the first Friday Reads of the year! And since I have such a backlog, I'm gonna have two mini reviews of books I read on December as part of the Diverse December challenge! And not only that but The Rose Society was my Alyssa Recommends book for December!!

The Iron Warrior by Julie Kagawa

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


After finishing The Iron Traitor I was in absolute shock because THAT ENDING! Talk about an awful cliffhanger! But as soon as the cover & synopsis for this one was revealed, we could breathe again.

I must confess the way things got turned around and shown to have been solved in between books felt a lil bit like cheating, and maybe that was why I wasn't as 100% emotionally invested in the series as I was with all the previous books? I don't know...

Despite that new distance from the story, I really enjoyed this book. Ethan & Kenzie are fantastic together and I love how well Kenzie can deal with the Fae and their tricks, far much better than our dear Ethan, even if he finally grows out of his irrational first gut reaction of rejection for everything Fae.

Keirran's path was a complicated one in this one, after all he was quite clearly The Iron Traitor in the previous book, but I'm glad that even Ethan never really gave up on him, even when he had the best of reasons to do so.

The book is as usual full of Fae politics, even more if you had the Between & the Forgotten to the usual courts. But I was really glad to see Meghan standing her own toe to toe with the likes of Oberon and Maab. It is also full of traipsing through the NeverNever, some areas that are new to us, and old friends that we meet again. And it is also full of the trademark humour that I've got used to in this series. And I'm really glad about the humour because Julie Kagawa really managed to outdo herself on the creepiness in this one... Three words: Creepy Carnival Clowns! *shudders*

The ending was quite satisfying as far as Ethan & Kenzie is concerned, because we see their relationship solidify but in a very realistic way back on the human world! The cheating feeling also nagged me a lil bit on the climax, but at the same time I think it was satisfying and well done. Maybe I was expecting more and was scared of more emotional torture and when we didn't got through it I was left feeling a bit flat? I don't know. Still, I really ended up enjoying it so it gets 3.5 stars!



The Rose Society by Marie Lu

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I don't think I've loved a villain like this since... Darth Vader maybe? And that's saying something since I am a massive Star Wars geek!

Adelina is the villain of this story, but since this is mostly her story is way too easy to forget about that and root for her in ways I wouldn't have otherwise!

Marie Lu really is an amazing & skillful writer, she manages to make us see things from Adelina's POV and not such in the simple sense of writing from her POV, but actually making us feel for Adelina, and even following her justifications and agreeing with them! You barely realize sometimes the descent into the madness (and the dark side, so to speak) that she's undergoing until there is a change of POV and your able to pull yourself out of Adelina's head

Adelina is our bad guy, and quite a very scary one at that, but given the actions of the rest of the characters, I'm not really sure who all I'd call the good guys, because none of them are really in the clear, and that's probably the most fantastic part of this book, how in the grey everyone is. Black and white is quite inexistent here, and writing this characters and making you feel for them... masterful!

The relatonships between the characters keep on being as nuanced and complicated as they were in the first book but even more, adding more twists to the trust/lack of trust, fear and love that bound the whole cast together!

I just cannot say anything more without risking some spoilers, and I really want to avoid that! Sufice to say that the plot thickens and twists in ways you probably won't expect, the characters are simply brilliant and fantastic and scary and Marie Lu is a bit of a genius! Very much deserved 4.5 stars to this one! I'm really not sure what to expect from the next book!


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Friday Reads: The Reader's Lounge Book Club reads The Young Elites by Marie Lu!!

Hiya there guys!

Happy Friday! Just one more day till Halloween!! I hope you all have your costumes ready, some candy to hand out (and plenty to eat) or have plans to spend the day watching/reading some creepy movies/books!

I'm starting this week's Friday Reads with this month's book for The Reader's Lounge Book Club! I was quite excited when the book I had voted for got chosen for October and also glad that once I read it I had the sequel readily available!

The Young Elites by Marie Lu

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I had wanted to read The Young Elites since it was published last year because all my bloggy friends reviews were great but they also mentioned a bad cliffhanger, so I was determined to wait till the series was over to read it.

BUT that changed when it was chosen as October's book for my book club! I was excited because I had voted for it and also relieved because the sequel was coming out this month too. And boy am I glad of that! I will be reading The Rose Society ASAP because the ending for The Young Elites packs with the punch to the feels!! Cliffhanger alert!

Adelina is not your "usual" YA main character. She could be qualified more easily as a villain than a hero I guess, but she doesn't feel like an evil character, not purely and not one dimensionally either. Adelina was marked by the plage and has been shunned by everyone and mistreated by her father. It's no surprise that she finds herself fighting back in any way she can, and that her moral compass is more than a bit awry.

We meet a lot of morally grey characters. The Dagger Society members are fighting for themselves and their political agenda and also for the rest of the malfettos, even if they don't do it openly or fight for them all. Raffaele and Enzo are both leaders in their own way, with their own different powers and their own different ways to exert control and to wield power that was taken from them. Their relationship with Adelina is very interesting since both have different opinions of her and interact very differently.

There are three POVs in this book, Adelina in 1st person and Enzo and Teren in 3rd person. While this could have felt odd, it didn't, it adjusted quite well with how the story is Adelina's so that's why we follow her path more closely, and I love how we are privy to her mind's inner workings!

Teren is the main antagonist of our book, the High Inquisitor and that has dedicated his life to pursue, capture, torture and kill malfettos. He was also an extremely fascinating character, very creepy and disquieting with his extreme devotion to his cause and his self-hatred! And also his own quest for power.

I loved that the relationship between Adelina and her sister Violetta is so important in this book! They have a lot of love but also a lot of resentment between them, and despite Adelina always having felt second rate compared to her sister, she doesn't care what she has to do to keep her safe! Great to see how a familial relationship is as important or maybe even more than others like romantic ones in this book.

The book has a few lulls here and there while Adelina gets used to her new surroundings or gets trained and plans are made, but once the action picks up, this is a mind-blowing rollercoaster of powers used, fights, explosions, deaths, betrayals and more betrayals and more deaths!

And then you get to the epilogue that makes you even more excited and scared of what's to come in the next book! Very much deserved 4 stars to this one!



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