Weekend Reads #52 – Winter by Marissa Meyer

Happy Weekend everyone! I hope you are all having a good week. I don’t know about you but this coming week for us will be super busy. When I’m busy like that I like to have one of two types of books on hand: a really long one that I can enjoy throughout the busy week or short novellas that I can read quickly in one sitting.

Today I wanted to share with you the final book in Marissa Meyer‘s The Lunar Chronicles. Winter is twice as long as the rest of the books in the series, but I’m here to tell you that it was perfection! If you haven’t read the series yet, I would not read this review as there are minor spoilers to the rest of the series. If you’re looking for a book to read during the busy holiday week, I’d suggest this one. The chapter lengths aren’t too long that when you have a few minutes to yourself you can read one and get back to the busy bustle of the holidays.

Winter by Marissa Meyer
Series: The Lunar Chronicles,
on 2015-11-10
Length: 824 pages
Reviewing eBook from TN R.E.A.D.S.
Rating:

Princess Winter is admired by the Lunar people for her grace and kindness, and despite the scars that mar her face, her beauty is said to be even more breathtaking than that of her stepmother, Queen Levana.

Winter despises her stepmother, and knows Levana won’t approve of her feelings for her childhood friend—the handsome palace guard, Jacin. But Winter isn’t as weak as Levana believes her to be and she’s been undermining her stepmother’s wishes for years. Together with the cyborg mechanic, Cinder, and her allies, Winter might even have the power to launch a revolution and win a war that’s been raging for far too long.

Can Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter defeat Levana and find their happily ever afters?

OMG!!!! THIS IS HOW YOU END A SERIES!!!!! Marissa Meyer‘s Winter is sheer brilliance! Each book in the series has added new characters, adding new points of view. You would think this would get confusing, BUT it doesn’t! With each additional character, the story itself just gets better and Princess Winter…I LOVE HER! At the end of Cress, Cinder and her crew had kidnapped Prince Kai, Jacin betrayed them, and they were still no closer to saving Scarlet. Winter picks up just a few weeks after the end of Cress. Prince Kai has been caught to speed, he now knows who Cinder really is, and he is their ticket to Luna. The goal for Cinder and her crew: take over Luna and kill Queen Levana. Sounds too easy, right? 😉

I’ll be the first to admit to you that I was skeptical going into this book. I didn’t care for Cress. I felt like the author was using a template for writing her books, taking the old fairy tales and making the love interest just a little too easy. Seriously did anyone else buy Captain Thorne falling for Cress? I KNOW I didn’t. Meyer addresses this very well in Winter and I have to say that even I fell in love with meek Cress after this. Her character’s growth as she experiences more and more outside of her satellite is amazing. She goes from this meek and mild, scared all the time girl to brave and courageous woman. And she is not the only one to go through more changes!

Captain Thorne is still my favorite character of the entire series. He is suave, a con-man, and dang it if he isn’t the captain 😀 BUT his character, unlike Cress, goes through the smallest change. When he was first introduced, he was self-centered, looking to see what the world could give him. But meeting Cress and their whole ordeal in the desert has changed him for the better. He’s still a bit self-centered, but all his other actions point towards the change in him. Thorne doesn’t just look out for himself anymore. No, he includes his friends, his crew as he calls them. He actually cares 😀

Now onto the newer characters in this series: Princess Winter and Jacin. Winter is Levana’s step-daughter (and if you haven’t read Fairest to see how she became that, I suggest you do so ASAP) and she is slightly crazy. Well, slightly is an understatement. She is full blown nuts, but for a good reason. She refuses to use her Lunar gift of manipulation. Because of this, her mind has turned on her (they call it Lunar sickness). She hallucinates vividly all these things that happen to her and others around her. The only person that has ever been able to ground her is Jacin and he’s been missing for two months, presumed a traitor to the crown. Winter is kind, just like her fairy tale compatriot Snow White. She has a soft spot for animals and people who suffer, she’s beyond beautiful even without manipulating anyone, and she has a large heart.

Jacin, the guard we met in Cress, is her childhood friend and assigned as her guard when he returns. I didn’t care for him at first. He was uncaring and honestly I was afraid he would get Cinder and the crew killed or turn them over. Instead as we get his POV this book, I fell in love with him. Everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, he does is for Winter. He loves her, is devoted to her, even though he feels he cannot have her. He will do whatever he needs to do to protect her, even taking on the Queen’s huntsman role.

The plot of this story is the endgame. Cinder plans to kill Levana and ascend to her throne. But it is never as simple as it sounds. The story revolves around Cinder becoming Princess Selene, starting a revolution and uprising in the outer territories of Luna, and finally attacking Levana and the palace. It is full of twists and surprises! And have I mentioned just how fast-paced it is yet? I was over half way through with the book before I realized I was! The suspense, the action, none of it slows down in the slightest.

What I absolutely love about this book and really the entire series is the author’s ability to blend fairy tale with her dystopian sci-fi world. The blend of this with the tale of Snow White is perfection! I was really blown away! And of course I’ve already bragged about the characters but I will again 😉 All the characters, all the different POV, are wonderful. I loved reading from each character as the series has progressed, seeing the different ways each grew, how they came together as a team, and the ultimate battle at the end….just perfect!!!

Overall, if you haven’t guessed already, I LOVED this book! It is a fantastic conclusion to the series. While the author leaves a few loose ends, the story is complete, the characters have reached their end and I couldn’t be happier! If you’re a fan of the series or you’ve just stumbled across my review and think you would enjoy them, READ this book! I promise you will not be disappointed.

Final Conclusion:

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