Pressure In The Young Elites, By Marie Lu

Pressure
The book, The Young Elites, by Marie Lu is a page turning story that tells about how pressure can affect our everyday lives. In the story Adelina Amouteru is living in a world ravaged by a horrible fever. Some who had it are marked with different colored hair, or scars on their body. The government calls those people malfettos. Some malfettos can twist the strings or reality and use unnatural powers. The government will stop at nothing to destroy those people. Adelina is one of those malfettos. In this story it teaches us that pressure can make us do things we wouldn't normally do in an attempt to do right; these decisions may be bad. In the beginning of the story the author talks about many pressures but the most notable is when she joins the Dagger society and she is tested to see which emotions she aligns with best by touching different stones. It turns out she aligns with hatred and fear and basically feeds off it. She overhears Raffele talking to Enzo, the leader,

She's in an arena fighting against Teren with Enzo. She disguises Enzo to look like Teren with her power of illusion (Lu 321). She uses the anger she felt towards Teren from kidnapping her sister and lashes out at who she thinks is Teren. It even says, “I reach down into my chest, find the last of my strength, and pull on Terens energy. Let him feel agony he's never felt before.” This shows the loathing she feels toward Teren. Also, by the time she realizes she accidently made Enzo suffer, the damage has been done because it gave Teren enough time to jump forward and kill Enzo. If Adelina might have not been so hasty, or pressured so wouldn't have messed up on her targeting and actually hit the real Teren. Maybe Enzo would still be alive if she wouldn't have used her anger so vigorously. This part shows that in times of immense pressure it increases the chance of us messing up and doing something