The Young Elites by Marie Lu takes a few wider known tropes and spins it into a riveting tale of suspense and sadness. Lu tells the tale of Adelina, a young woman who was struck by a fever that devastated her country when she was very young. Interestingly enough, the fever changed some of the children when they recovered, giving them fantastic abilities; these children were called malfettos. They often have strange markings from the fever that alert other people that they do have abilities. The markings are said to be “not of this world,” or just so odd that the people believe it from some devil-like entity. Adelina, while having the marking of silver hair, does not discover her powers until her father, an extremely cruel man, tries to give her as a mistress to a wealthy man. It is hard to marry off malfettos, apparently, so that seems to be the best Adelina's father thinks he can do for her. She runs away, but her father catches up to her: she has no choice but to kill him. She discovers through his death that she can create illusions. She continues running, only to be caught by the authorities, called the Inquisition Axis. She is nearly burned at the stake when a masked man, Reaper, saves her. He is one of the Young Elite, a group of malfettos who use their powers to end the crimes against other malfettos. She learns his name is Enzo, the prince of her country that was removed as heir because he is a malfetto. She is then trained to become a Young Elite by Raffaele, who is beautiful, smart, and all around pretty great person. What those in the Young Elite don't know is that Adelina will ruin their lives forever.

First thing I want to acknowledge is the big tropes in the story. One is “the bad guy has someone I love and are using me to betray my friends, but I won't tell them” trope, which pisses me off to no end. Adelina does this when her sister is taken by the Leader of the Inquisition Axis, Terren. He uses her to get information on who the Young Elites are and, of course, she doesn't tell any of her new friends so they can help her. Honestly, a lot of the conflict could have been avoided if she had spoken to the Young Elites about it and thought of a plan to turn it around on Terren. But no, that obviously doesn't happen and Adelina fumbles around trying to fix her mistakes, causing the death of two Elites. Another is the “bad guy being manipulated by women who they are in love with and do whatever they can to be with them” trope. Terren loves the Queen of the country, who is Enzo’s sister, and they have an affair, despite her being married to a Robert Baratheon-like king. He begins hunting malfettos because of her insults and cruelty towards them, in spite of him being a malfetto himself. She is obviously just using him to kill her own brother and to take over the country herself, without the need for the bumbling king. Actually, it is a very Cersei Lannister type of situation. Anyways, Terren turns against his old friend, Enzo, for the Queen and her ideals.

I love the fact that Lu puts parallels from history into the story, especially with the subjugation and prejudice of the minority group. The minority group has a stigma around them, special markings to say who they are, killings funded and encouraged by the state, and this group is the scapegoat for all the country's problems. I'm sure you know where I'm going with this. Also, there is the “burn them at the stake” thing going on, similar to the witch trials that went through Europe in the 15th through 18th century, though that is the only thing that references the trials.