Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3) by Marissa Meyer - Ashley's Review


Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Title: Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3)
Author: Marissa Meyer
Year Published: 2014

My Scarlet (#2) Review
My The Queen's Army (#1.5) Review
My Cinder (#1) Review



Synopsis: Rapunzel’s tower is a satellite. She can’t let down her hair—or her guard. 

In this third book in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles series, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army. 

Their best hope lies with Cress, who has been trapped on a satellite since childhood with only her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker—unfortunately, she’s just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice. 

When a daring rescue goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing stop her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only ones who can.

----------------------------------------------------------

Review: I don't understand how one series can be so incredible. Each book gets progressively better, and I wasn't sure that was going to be possible after Cinder. Everything about The Lunar Chronicles is just so good that I don't know why everyone hasn't read these books! I had ridiculously high expectations for Cress, and Marissa Meyer blew every single one of them out of the water! 

My favorite part about Cress was the ensemble cast. It reminded me of a Joss Whedon show - everyone is somewhere in the world doing something, but it never feels like one character is left out because they're saving a different part of the world. It also never really feels like there's one main character. Sure, Cinder might be the most important character and the one who brings everyone together, but this group wouldn't be successful without each and every person. And not a single member of the ragtag crew is left underdeveloped. Somehow we jump all over time and space and I never felt overwhelmed or like things were just thrown together. Every single detail is important and comes back in some way. 

Even details from the first book! We're given more background in this book, and I think it's crazy how well some of the reveals were set up. We've known Cress since book 1, and we've even been hearing bits and pieces about Winter since book 1. And characters are connected in ways that I would not have imagined. I could guess some of the relationships, but it was still really neat to read about how the reveals are made to the characters and to see their reactions. 

Although this book, and the series really, are very character heavy, the plot is still pretty intense and moves along at a pretty good pace. I was never bored and I didn't feel like there were parts where I was trudging through just to get to the next part. Like I said before, every detail is important. As upset as I was at times about characters being split up, I really enjoyed reading about what was going on in other parts of the world. Or worlds, I guess? And I thought it was really interesting to read things from the perspective of pretty much every character. We see things from Cinder, Thorne, Scarlet, Cress, Kai, Sybil, Levana, Dr. Erland... Pretty much everyone gets at least a chapter's worth of story to tell.

I could talk about this book forever and discuss all of the theories I have about what will happen in Winter (speaking of Winter, I think she's going to be my favorite character. She's kind of awesome in the few scenes she's in), but you should really just read it for yourself.  I would recommend this series to basically everyone, but especially to fans of Joss Whedon, Sailor Moon, fairy tales (I loved all of the subtle and not-so-subtle nods to the original fairy tales too!), and sci-fi YA. Actually, just sci-fi in general. It's not too bad for a younger audience either, although I think it might be a little overwhelming with all of the characters. If you've read Cinder and Scarlet, read Cress ASAP! If you haven't read the first two books.... what are you waiting for?! 5/5!


--Ashley

No comments:

Post a Comment