Winter by Marissa Meyer

Title: Winter

Author: Marissa Meyer

Publisher: Feiwel and Friends

Series Status: The 4th and final novel in the Lunar Chronicles

Page Count: 824

Rating: 5/5 stars

Synopsis: 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?

Review: There are very many things I want to say about this book. First of all, it is so large! I was in love with just the idea of 800 pages! I was a bit disappointed to see that the pages were rather thin though, making it look a lot smaller than it is.

I adored this book. The hype that surrounded this is what made me pick up Cinder a month ago, and I am grateful that I did. It definitely lived up to the hype for me. It was so hard to just read only 100 or so pages of this, because you simply have to know what happens next. I read the first 500 pages in a day, and finished the rest the next day. I could not put it down.

There were also so many different point of views in this, and I know sometimes it confuses people and they do not like them, but I thought it was needed. There was so much happening in this, the entire time. You had to have all the different points of views to be able to keep up with what was happening.

You could really feel the character growth happening within some of the characters. Cinder, who truly became a leader. Cress, finally coming out of her little shell, her protective bubble she lives in. Thorne, trying to turn himself around, to be better for Cress, because she needed a hero, not a criminal, and he wanted to be that for her.

There were also points in this whenever I felt some sympathy for Levana. She didn’t really show character growth, but I still felt bad for her. A lot of people would probably disagree with me, but I tend to try and see the good in everyone. In my opinion, I think she was just afraid. She was afraid of losing everything. All she had was the throne, being the queen that was not really loved, but was beautiful. She was indeed evil, but I have no doubt in my mind that if Cinder’s mother, Channary, had not been so cruel to her, she would have ended up in a better place. Maybe she is in a better place now, in her fictional afterworld. Keep in mind that I did not read Fairest, so I don’t know everything about Levana.

I am a huge fan of Marissa’s writing, and I loved this. I have to say, I’m going to miss this series. I wish I had read it a little bit slower to savor it, but I had to devour it, it was so good. I am sad that it is over and finished, but that’s okay I guess.

Overall, this series was a wonderful and beautiful re-telling. The perfect mixture of fantasy, fairy-tale, and science fiction. Marissa Meyer did an excellent job in writing this, and I have really enjoyed this series.

I give this novel 5/5 stars and would highly recommend it to fans of fantasy and science fiction.

For more reviews from readers of Winter, click here.