Friday, February 12, 2016

Winter

Winter by Marissa Meyer, 824 pages
Book 4 in the Lunar Chronicles

Spoilers if you haven't read Cress.

When last we met our crew, they had successfully managed to kidnap Emperor Kai before he could say "I do" to the evil Queen Levana. Orbiting Earth using Cress's hacker skills to evade capture, Cinder comes up with a plan that will get her onto Luna and (hopefully) start a revolution. Unfortunately, it involves Kai marrying Queen Levana after all, except this time on Luna, so that he can help smuggle them in.

Meanwhile, Jacin has made it back to Luna after seemingly selling out Cinder and her friends to Sybil Mira. He really doesn't care what happens - he just wants to get back to Princess Winter, Queen Levana's beautiful step-daughter. Winter herself is more than thrilled he has returned, not only because he is the only one who can calm her down when the walls start bleeding, but also because she loves him. Jacin also loves her, but knows that the two of them could never be together, for millions of reasons.

Cinder's plans are set. Can she and her friends start a revolution and change Luna forever?

What an adventure. 800-plus pages of cliffhangers, deadly struggles, and romantic moments later, and I can't believe the series is over. But what a fantastic ending! Every night I went to bed with my mind racing, not sure how everyone was going to survive and desperately hoping that they all would. Admittedly, there are a few moments that were a little too perfect (like Cress meeting Kai at just the right moment to evade capture), but the story moves so quickly that it's hard to be too judgmental. Meyer really drives home the deadliness of the Lunars and their powers in ways that weren't as obvious in the previous books, and she still manages to deftly weave all the different characters' narratives together without missing a beat. She also manages to make Winter almost satirically perfect as her stand in for Snow White (of course she could go convince a pack of Lunar special operatives to join Cinder's cause just by singing), but without making too much fun of her. Luckily I still have the recently released short story collection to keep me anchored in this wonderful sci-fi world.

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