WINTER wraps up THE LUNAR CHRONICLES with adventure and finesse!
Marissa Meyer’s The Lunar Chronicles series is a fantastical space opera retelling of classic fairy tales and while that may sound a bit odd, but it’s one of the best YA series we’ve ever picked up! There’s non-stop action, witty characters, original settings, magic powers, and more twists than you can imagine. We’re saddened to see it all come to an end with Winter, the fourth book in the series but oh, what an ending it was!
If you’re not familiar with the series, stop here and grab yourself the first book, Cinder! We’ll keep things spoiler-free for this book, but there are spoilers through Cress involved.
Last we saw Cinder and her band of intergalactic rebels including Cress, Wolf, Thorne, and Cinder’s loyal droid Iko, they were safely on The Rampion with Prince Kai of the Eastern Commonwealth who they maaayyy have kidnapped just before his own wedding ceremony. Kai and Cinder have finally admitted their feelings to each other, but that still doesn’t squash Levana’s deadly disease, vicious wolf soldiers, or her thirst to take over Earth. With Wolf desperate to save Scarlet from captivity in Levana’s court, the team devises a plan to defeat the evil queen once and for all; a plan that involves their own invasion of Luna.
On Luna, the young, beautiful Princess Winter can’t do much to save herself from Levana’s scrutiny, nor can she help her beloved friend Jacin once he returns to Luna after weeks with Cinder’s group. Still refusing to use her powers, Winter’s Lunar sickness is worse than ever. That doesn’t stop Levana from seeing the adored princess as a threat. Her strange behavior and moral center behind it make her a liability, plus Levana is just plain jealous. But with Jacin back, Winter is willing to forget it all if only the two can save each other from the chaos around them.
Winter is a lengthy book and there’s a lot that happens. Some of it is high-stakes intensity, some of it is playful, and all of it felt necessary. Marissa Meyer weaves a beautiful tale that is both a maniac adventure to save the universe and a deeply interconnected story of love and friendship. We freaked out over all of the characters’ complicated relationships, action-packed sequences, and all the dilemmas in between. Then again, we enjoy these characters so much that they could have made witty comments while playing cards for half the book and we’d still be really excited.
Each character has their fairy tale role to play: Winter is Snow White. However, Meyer is great about referencing the original tale without crafting the novel in its exact footsteps. Winter has a wild, wide-eyed depth that we’ve never seen in an incarnation of the character before and her journey is just so much more interesting. You quickly realize that what you expect to happen next isn’t what you’re actually going to get, but it’s exactly what you need.
We’d be remiss not to mention that we listened to the (22+ hour!) audiobook version narrated by Rebecca Soler, who does an incredible job keeping the tension up and the characters sounding original. We rarely do audiobooks because we’ve had some rough experiences in the past, but this storytelling is so spectacular, we recommend it!
Without getting into it, we think Marissa Meyer did something wondrous in the ending to this series. There’s something for everyone, twists that will make your heart melt or break, and some deeply satisfying moments of retribution. We absolutely adored every second of it!
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
