Stars: ★★★★/5
In this third book in the Lunar Chronicles, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, now with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army.
Their best hope lies with Cress, a girl imprisoned on a satellite since childhood who’s only ever had 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 of Cress goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing prevent her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only hope the world has.
Cress is an interesting book for me, because it worked in a way for me that Scarlet didn’t but still failed to impress me as much as Cinder did. In large part, I think, because I’m still of the opinion that The Lunar Chronicles would work best with Cinder as the only protagonist in each book. Hear me out: I just think there are too many characters competing for attention with each book. Cinder was by far the superior book in this series, partly because the idea of cyborg Cinderella in a futuristic Asia had the best fairy tale twist to me and partly because she got her own, fully-formed book. It was hers. She didn’t share with Scarlet or Cress or Winter.
I get a little less excited with each book, but I do have to say this for Cress — it gave me intense swoony fangirl feels in a way that only Marissa can. I also think it’s worth noting that I noticed an improvement on the handling of multiple POVs from Scarlet. Scarlet was a pity three stars for me, so if you loved Scarlet (as most people did), then I think Cress has even more to offer. Cress is a socially awkward, shy character, but is so lovable and so fun to read. While the non-fangirl part of me was annoyed by some things, fangirl me was 100% on board.
I think Cress was a step in the right direction, is what I’m saying. I still couldn’t fully love it, given that I feel like these books are getting too crowded…especially with Winter reportedly clocking in at eight hundred pages. There don’t need to be four protagonists. I still think these books would best be served with Cinder as the primary focus of each book, but this isn’t to say that I don’t love the series. Because I do. There’s just this part of me hoping the next book is as good as Cinder was.
0 comments:
Post a Comment