The Midnight Star

Inital Thoughts: Despite its obvious flaws, especially when compared to the other books in the trilogy, the Midnight Star is beautiful in its simplicity and execution. Adelina has to be one of my favorite characters in a while.

Previous ratings in series:
1. The Young Elites: 6/10
2. The Rose Society: 8/10

Rating Breakdown:
Writing: 8.5/10

Enjoyment: 6.5/10

Pacing: 6.5/10

Characters, development and world-building: 9.5/10

Plot: 7/10

Creativity: 7/10

Overall: 8/10

Wow. I do have to say that this ending completely threw me, like much of this trilogy did. It was another completely uncharacteristic flash of brilliance in what I thought was a series of mediocrity taking itself too seriously, outside of these few brief moments of pure ingenuity.

So we enter this book around 6 months after the end of the previous installment, where our favorite innocent little elite, Adelina had successfully completed her goal of becoming pernicious queen bitch extraordinaire (any future dictators who want to make use of that title must pay royalty fees to me btw) in order to payback the unmarked and the world. She is also now schizophrenic (even if those voices in her head actually exist because her mental state is partly a result of the degrading of the elites' powers), paranoid and increasingly insane. She also is increasingly not in full control of herself. Ironically, her quest for outward strength and power leads her to lose her internal strength and control.

Adelina is a perfectly constructed character. First introduced as naïve, then twisted by fate, those around her, herself and her powers into a beautifully hateful and despicable character that we all are cheering for in some deranged way. This horrifyingly likable, yet utterly terrible character is alluring. Teren also receives a similar sort of treatment to his character, although in a different enough and lesser way as to feel different. I would disagree with anyone who claims his character arc did not reach a satisfying end.
Lu manages to break my heart with the small things, whilst making massacres feel apathetic. The ending left a shiver in me as it played perfectly with my heart. I felt emotion, yet the book didn't rely on shockingly horrifying me to produce it.
So, the ending was great. The trip there had its failures and successes though. This book felt a lot more flat that is predecessors, particularly The Rose Society. Dull enough to make me not sneak glances at it in class in sections (this is a usually practice for me). The book felt short yet managed to also feel dull at the same time. I finished within only a few hours due to its short length at 316 pages. Not much went on plot wise except the finale and its buildup. This book was far more an exploration of Adelina (and side characters, although we received far too few chapters from other PoVs for this to really happen), then a telling of an exciting story. And despite praising its handling of aforementioned topic, a lack of plot also results in a lack of opportunity to attack Adelina's psyche.
Anyway, this book is short, so it is still quite enjoyable despite being more flat and lacking in plot. Definitely worth a read.
muh blog