Hello Rad Readers!! Cress has absolutely been the best addition to the Lunar Chronicles so far! This is the third novel in the series, so if you have not yet read Cinder or Scarlet, READ THEM! It's worth it just so you can read this book!
In this addition, we meet Cress, the girl we see towards the ending of 'Scarlet' who risks everything trying to warn Cinder and her gang about Queen Levana's evil plans to take over the Earthens. The problem is that Cress can only do so much for them while she is trapped in a satellite. The same one she has been trapped in for seven years to do Lunar hacking and spying for Sybil and Levana, actually. Her skills in hacking seem to have backfired on the lunars however, as Cress now wants to use her talent to help do what is right. She sees the way to do that is to get in touch with Cinder and the rest of her band of fugitives. She had just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder when she got in touch with them. Cinder and the gang decide that they need Cress on their side, but when their attempt to save her from the satellite prison goes wrong they all get split up. Meenwhile down in Commonwealth, Queen Levana is still determined to marry Kai to gain power of Commonwealth and ultimately all of Earth, or else start a war. However, suddenly Prince Kai is hopeful that there will be another way out of this. Hopeful that Cinder is on to something. He is the prince however and he knows that any resistance shown towards the evil and lethal Levana can and will lead to war, and the loss of the promise for the cure of Letimosis. Two things that Earth cannot afford.
So, I think that one of the main reasons why I loved Cress more than the rest so far, was because there was always so much going on. There were lots of plot points going on at the same time being that the gang was all split up, and they were all very engaging, high stakes, and fast paced.
Where in 'Cinder' we were still learning a lot about the world and establishing the characters, in Cress, everything is fairly established aside from the twists obviously, but the difference there is that we are finding it out with the characters. There is nothing really at this point that the characters know that we don't. The same type of 'still learning' vibe went on a lot in Scarlet as well. It isn't really a problem, it is just how reading complicated universes like this work. We need to get information dumps here and there that way we know what everything is and what space terms mean and funky things like that. In Scarlet what I mean is that we still had to learn a lot about Wolf and the Queen's guards and mutants and all that crazy stuff like that. I know that it is all a requisite for it to be a sensible book, we needed to know the backstory and what was going on. I am not complaining about that in the previous books, but it is a completely different and far better reading experience now that we are at the point in the series where we no longer need information dumps because we are figuring things out along with the characters. Essentially it feels like we've caught up. In Scarlet also, it felt that Scarlet and Wolf were kind of just on a wild goose chase, and that they didn't even really know what they were looking for themselves. It dragged on and on and on. In that book we didn't get enough attention on Cinder which was the story that we really cared about at the time. Now, in 'Cress,' we get a lot from each character, and the least on Scarlet. In fact, I thought it was a genius move to tell the reader so little about what was going on with Scarlet... But I can't tell you why I think that just yet, because... you know... spoilers... ahh.
That seems like a good place to go into the spoiler section of this book talk in fact, so if you have not yet read Cress read it! The characters are to die for, the plot is exciting, and I really don't think there was anything that I didn't like about this book. I loved Cinder, Scarlet was eh, but Cress is a whole new level! I gave it 5/5 stars on GoodReads and even added it to my favorites shelf! I am blown away by how much I enjoyed this book!!
Ok, so without further ado, hello spoiler ready gang!
I really enjoyed the fact that everyone was split up. It was very interesting it added a lot of intensity seeing all these new character dynamics forming and following a lot of different journeys throughout the story. It made certain that there was always something exciting going on so I was really never bored while reading this. Cinder being with Wolf and Iko, and meeting Jacin; Cress with Thorne, and Scarlet on her own and then eventually meeting Winter in the end. I thought that it was a very smart move by the author including a lot about each character, because yes, a main point of this story was to introduce Cress into the larger story, but I liked the way she did so in this book far more than the way she attempted to do so with Scarlet in the previous novel. We get to learn about a new character and watch her story while also following the story of the characters we initially fell in love with and I thought that was an extremely good call on Marissa Meyer's part. One of the reasons I didn't like Scarlet as much as I liked Cinder was because I felt like I was reading about something I didn't yet care about. I didn't know the characters at first, and they weren't the reason I started the series or cared enough to read the second book. I cared about Cinder and that is why I kept reading. I didn't find this to be a problem at all in 'Cress' because we get to see all the different journeys that the characters go through. Yes we learn a lot about Cress but we also get to hear about Cinder and Kai and Jacin and Thorne and Scarlet. The many different perspectives and stories was without a doubt the greatest strength of this book.
We get to know Cress very well. She is an awesome character, and I have come to the firmest of conclusions that I hate Sybil. I like how Cress is kind of a weirdo, it is super realistic considering the fact that she has been virtually devoid of human contact for seven years. Her confusion and inexperience of the world was really a lot of fun to read about. The fact that she had never seen trees or animals before was such a funny point to draw from and like I said before, the writing overall is incredible, so the way everything was described, you could really get a sense of the shock she was going through. Very cool! Her and Thorne are a funny pairing. Watching them trek through the desert was a lot more intense than I had anticipated. Honestly the entire book was more intense than I anticipated. Up till now Thorne had just been bossed around by Cinder and honestly he needed to be. That dude is a mess! But it was really interesting watching a mess of a character try to get it together and not die of heat exauhstion or dehydration in the desert. I was impressed as well by Cress. She had this feeling in the beginning of being a damsel in distress and I HATE that trope in books, but then she turned out to be not weak and lame and annoying. Thorne went blind and that forced her to step it up and she totally did and was written as such a strong person. Where as in some novels we see characters that are so strong or at least have the potential to be so strong act so weak, in 'Cress' we saw a seemingly weak character act really much stronger than she was. It was great. I was so pleasantly surprised by so much!! Ahhh I loved this book!!
As far as Cinder goes, I have always liked her character. She has always been so head strong and portrays herself like she is very sure of herself even if she is not. Similarly to Cress it is nice to see a character who is strong and powerful act like it. Sometimes, in a way in fact that reminded me of America Singer from The Selection series, it is not so great of a trait, like when she has these just horrible unviable and illogical ideas that she doesn't seem to think twice about and is so insistent on, and then it proves ultimately to mess a lot up. However, of course without that we would not have an exciting book, now would we? I really appreciated how towards the end although she was really bummed on herself about using her mind control powers, she knew that she was only doing what she had to. Cinder in the first or second book would not see the difference and that right there is what we call character development ladies and gentlemen. I kind of hated her dynamic with Wolf in this book, also there really wasn't one. He tried to kill her because he thought Scarlet was dead and being tortured which he was half right about and then spent I would say 70% of the rest of the times he was mentioned either unconscious or as good as unconscious because he was so thrown off by Scarlet going missing. Like, dog (lol pun intended) the only way you could even have a hope of getting her back is if you get your head in the game, ya know? Don't go against your friends champ! I don't know, I find him to be... well... not the greatest of characters.
As far as Prince Kai goes, he might just be my favorite character in the series right now, and I know that is a bold claim, but every time we got to read from his point of view I honestly found it to be the most entertaining parts of the book. I liked how he is level headed in knowing that everything he chooses to do in terms of Levana and reasoning with her and her Thaumaturges and guards and really just any Lunars in general has the potential to effect the entirety of Commonwealth. He is not recklessly stupid and annoying like much royalty seems to be in young adult novels. However, he is still hopeful that there is a way out of basically giving up power to Levana. He is pretty funny whenever he comes up too and there is nothing like a good sprinkle of humor amidst a coup d'etat am I rightttt?? Big ups to Cinder as well for kidnapping him. Hella cold but the girl knew what needed to be done and I respect that hard.
Scarlet is really going through the ringer over there on Luna, like wowwwww I was shocked when she was being questioned by Sybil. I HATE Sybil by the way. I already said it, but I don't think saying it just once really does the situation justice. It was absolutely genius by the author to only mention her few and far between because once we finally heard from Scarlet I wanted to keep on reading until we heard from her again. Her story line was extremely entertaining and I hope we get to know more about what is going to happen to her and what has already happened to her in the next addition to this series, 'Winter' which I CANNOT WAIT to read! Speaking of Winter... I mean, that girl is insaneeee and I kind of love it. When she was talking about the walls bleeding I was like... yup... no... ya... this is sick. So, it really does all make sense what Dr. Erland was talking about with Lunars not using their powers and then going crazy, and we have a prime example right in front of us!! Poor Scarlet. :( When I first read that part I totally thought she was a goner but then hearing about how she knows that Scarlet's friends have Jacin I was like... I don't know... maybe she'll help the gang out? She did give Scarlet that food pain reliever thing at the end so I think as of right now she is on our side. HOWEVER, with Jacin being a traitor to Cinder at the end, I'm not sure if it is all an act or if he really only cares about Winter. And if it is the case that he only cares about Winter than what I gather is that Winter only cares about him so when it comes down to it she will betray the gang for him... I don't know these are all just predictions. I am going on a tangent, I am just so excited by all the craziness that went down in this book!!
Ok Rad Readers, we have covered a wholeeeeee lot just now! I can't wait to read Winter and the novellas (Fairest and Stars Above), what a great series this is!
- C8 ;)
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