Winter

It turns out Cinder isn’t the only princess despotic Queen Levana wants to keep out of the limelight. She may not have attempted to murder Winter (yet), but she did compel her to scar her own face. Winter is beautiful, and totally beloved by the people of Luna. Levana thought the scars might change people’s minds about her. It didn’t work – Winter is as beloved as ever.

In addition to being beautiful and sweet, the anti-Levana, if you will, Winter is absolutely the-palace-walls-are-bleeding crazy. After years of refusing to use her gift of mind control, she has been enveloped by the madness of the Lunar sickness.

But she copes, with the help of sexy palace guard (the same one who ratted out the team on the Rampion at the end of Cress ), Jacin.

When Cinder’s revolution finally begins to encroach on Levana’s rule, for the first time, Winter can envision a life that is more than just coping. A life free from Levana’s tyranny. She wants to join the fight. With her new allies at her side, she can only hope to keep the fractured pieces of her mind together until the end.

It is hard to review a book that’s just over 800 pages long.

Suffice to say, it was awesome.

I’ll expand on that a little.

Generally speaking, I am not much for book series. I rarely make it past book 2. Unless it’s Harry Potter, The Princess Diaries or some other precious thing from child/teen-hood, most of the time, I don’t want to know. Even if I’ve read a whole series and kind of liked it, by the time I’ve reached the end, I usually have more bad to say about it than good. I think this is essentially down to 2 series pitfalls, one of which is the love triangle. I’ve mentioned before that I just end up hating everyone involved by the end. When you’re willing two guys to dump a protagonist, then you know you’ve got a problem. The other pitfall is book 2, which almost always sucks. Frequently, I find that character development grinds to a halt, people fall in love for no reason and essentially nothing happens. So I never read the third book. Sometimes I think an okay trilogy would have make a fairly sound duology.

It happens in films too. Think of how much better the Hobbit movies might have been if most of them never happened.

I want you to know that it hurts me to say that, because of my deep and abiding love for Martin Freeman.

What worked for me in The Lunar Chronicles, what caused me to fall in love, I think, was that every book had a different protagonist. Rather than continuing the same story, leaving me to get bored reading recycled romantic scenes and the same self-sabotaging behaviours over and over again, every book Marissa Meyer put out felt fresh. We got to know someone new while watching Cinder gradually build her army. There was no main character in the series whose story I wasn’t completely invested in.

There was a new-ness to each story that drew me in every time. Winter was no different. Winter can be a stressful individual to be around. She can be consumed by horrifying visions any moment, whether or not you’re just about to be maybe eaten by a wolf army. But she’s more than just her unpredictable mental state. She’s brave. She launches into Cinder’s revolution without even considering the consequences. The reason she’s unstable in the first place is self-inflicted. She refuses to use her Lunar gift as she believes it can only result in the pain of others. There are few that would have the strength to face madness to remain true to their beliefs. She’s kind. Despite growing up with Levana and her complete disregard for the lives of her people, Winter cares.

She’s also a massive flirt. See any of her scenes with Jacin for evidence of this. Watching her throw impenetrable Jacin off balance is fun.

Like all the girls that have come before her, she was interesting and complex and someone I wanted to know more.

Winter was a very satisfying ending to a wonderful series. Marissa Meyer did a really good job of giving everyone time to speak throughout (although whenever Cress wasn’t around, I missed her) and I felt like everyone’s various threads were tied up well. The minute I finished I was ready to re-read Cinder and start the process all over again.

Favourite moments

• Whenever Kai sassed Levana.
• Winter and Scarlett facing the wolf armies.
• Cress and Thorne!!! All scenes.

My one issue:

We never got to see Torin relax. Poor guy. He went through a lot.