Book Review: Cress by Marissa Meyer

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Title: Cress
Author: Marissa Meyer
Series: The Lunar Chronicles, #3
Genre: YA - Science Fiction, Retelling
Original Release Date: February 4, 2014
Publisher: Square Fish, 2nd Edition
Pages: 592 (Paperback)
Source: Purchased
Rating: ★★★★☆

Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together they're plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army.

Their best hope lies with Cress, who has been trapped on a satellite since childhood with only 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 goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing stop her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only ones who can.

My Thoughts

I expected this book to be the same "action packed, fast paced" type of story that both Cinder and Scarlet were. As much as I loved the story, The pacing of this book didn't compare to the pacing of the previous two books. I loved that we got to follow each of the groups of main characters so we knew what was happening to everybody. I did wish I could have known a bit more about what was going on with Scarlet, but I enjoyed being able to identify with Wolf while we both worried about her.

Cress was an adorable character. She was exactly how I expected her to be. Naive, inquisitive, intelligent, and grateful for her freedom. She was the perfect representation of Rapunzel. I know it's weird to say this, but I was sad to see her hair go. I also thought that Thorne was the perfect representation of Rapunzel's rescuer - conceited, heroic, charming, and handsome. Overall, the characters of this story were perfectly written. I wouldn't change a thing about them. Strangely enough, Cress wasn't even my favorite character in this story! Iko has to be my favorite character. Her character development throughout this series was well done.

Since this book is a retelling of Rapunzel, one would expect a good Rapunzel story. I do have to say that this was achieved. A girl taken from her parents and locked away, a daring rescue from a handsome hero, a journey to freedom, the inevitable recapturing, and then being rescued again. I love how the retelling aspect of these books fit so well with the overall story line.

The reason I didn't give this book 5 stars was mostly because of Cress and Thorne's journey. I understand that the story needed to have to have that "two people stuck alone in a tough situation" experience to form a believable bond, but I thought it could have been achieved in half the time. Don't get me wrong, I love a good bonding journey! Unfortunately, this one just felt like it was twice as long as it really needed to be to get the point across.

I'm glad I pushed through because the resolution of the book more than made up for the struggle to stay awake in the first three-quarters. Ms. Meyer has a talented ability to not only tie up the story lines in a nice enough bow so that you don't go through the dreaded book mourning period, but she also creates enough of a cliff hanger to make you wish you had the next book available to start right away. I'm anxiously awaiting the fourth installment of this series.

Overall

I wholeheartedly recommend this book (even though the pacing is a bit tedious). The characters are vivid and memorable, the retelling aspect is spot on without being predictable, and the overall story is riveting. This is definitely a must-read series.