Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Review - Fairest


Written By: Marissa Meyer
Published By: Feiwel and Friends (MacMillan)
Release Date: January 27, 2015
Pages: 222 (Not including excerpt of Winter)
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Retelling

Source: Purchased

In this stunning bridge book between Cress and Winter in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles, Queen Levana’s story is finally told.

Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who is the fairest of them all?


Fans of the Lunar Chronicles know Queen Levana as a ruler who uses her “glamour” to gain power. But long before she crossed paths with Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress, Levana lived a very different story – a story that has never been told . . . until now. 

Marissa Meyer spins yet another unforgettable tale about love and war, deceit and death. This extraordinary book includes full-color art and an excerpt from Winter, the next book in the Lunar Chronicles series.




Honestly I wasn't overly crazy about Fairest.  Sure, it's a Marissa Meyer book and part of the Lunar Chronicles, but I personally am not a huge fan of back stories about villains.  I never have been.  Don't get me wrong, I love a good villain, they're fantastic and a story, especially a sci-fi fantasy story, can't really BE a story without one, but while it is interesting seeing how evil came to be that way I always end up circling back to the same thought; "Cool motive.  Still murder."  This being said I think I enjoyed Fairest a bit more than I thought I would.  There's something about Marissa's writing that makes it hard for me to put her books down, an ease that lulls me into reading page after page after page, somehow oblivious to the time ticking by.  Fairest, like all of her other books, does just that.  And despite being about a character that eventually turns into someone evil and heartless (haha, that's funny cause that's the title of Marissa's next book!) there are pieces of it that were so pretty.  Sure there were parts that weren't, there were even a few parts that irked me, mainly the whole "I am not a child" thing that shows just how much of a child the character actually is, but I understood the need for it.  I also found myself sympathizing with Levana for a period of time.  I think what I loved the most though was, having read all of the previous (other?) books in the series, I made connections between the books and saw all of the little tidbits Marissa had put in.  It's little Easter eggs like the ones in this book that push the story to the next level because it really shows that the author is thinking about every little detail, which just blows my mind.  Overall I'm pretty happy with this book, and although I wish that maybe it had come out after Winter because I NEED THE END OF THE SERIES I respect that Marissa needed to flush out this character, her villain, to help her write the end, and while it was short it was a quick, enjoyable read.  Fans of the Lunar Chronicles will surely enjoy this look into the most feared character in the series, and even though it's not the ending we were hoping to see at this point in the year it is part of the world and enough to, hopefully, hold us over until Winter's release this November.  


4/5 stars


2 comments:

  1. Yay :D Gorgeous review Anna. <3 I'm so happy that you loved this book. I loved it so much. Sigh. I kind of really liked Levana in this book, hah :p and yess. I loved the small hints about the other books/characters too :D So awesome. Fingers crossed the wait for Winter will be fast. <3

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  2. I still need to get those books. I found that the first one was way too predictable, so I never bothered to read the second one.

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