Review: The Rose Society

The Rose Society by Marie Lu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I didn’t care much at all for Marie Lu’s Legend series, yet her The Young Elites book really pulled me in. In both cases, I brought the entire trilogy at once. However, with Legend I carried on reading simply because I had the books, with The Young Elites I jumped into the second book instantly because I needed answers.

The Young Elites ended on a real high, meaning The Rose Society felt rather slow at first. I’d expected things to kick off with more of a bang, I expected there to be a lot more action. Yes, it was a lot of fun; however, I wasn’t quite as pulled into the story as I was with the first one. Things just seemed to be moving a lot slower, with a lot of buildup happening without there being the kind of action I’d been hoping there would be. As much as I love it when books set things into motion, this one simply wasn’t as engaging as I had hoped it would be after reading the first book.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot happened in this book. Most of what happened, though, wasn’t really all that much of a surprise. We were introduced to a new cast of characters – all of which I really enjoyed. In some cases, I questioned how I managed to get through one book without them there to make things so enjoyable. However, with their introduction came a lot of expected things. You knew where certain things would go; you knew what kind of plans would be formed and what events would be attempted. It felt as though this one was a little bit predictable in places – hence why I wasn’t as crazy about this one as I was the first book.

This left me believing I wouldn’t enjoy The Rose Society as much as I enjoyed The Young Elites – but then that ending. Wow. The ending more than made up for the slow speed and predictable scenes. The ending left me seriously excited for the final book, forcing me to forget about my feelings at the start of the book. It was unexpected, a real twist. It left me with so many questions, so many things I wanted to know. It also left me with the fear that bringing everything together in one final book will be exceptionally hard – yet the excitement of how everything will come together overshadows such a fear.

As a whole, it was a fun read. It wasn’t as fun as the first book, but the ending more than made up for it.

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