Review : Cress by Marissa Meyer

Summary (from Goodreads)

Title : Cress (Lunar Chronicles #3)
Author : Marissa Meyer
Publication Date : February 4th 2014
Publisher : Feiwel and Friends
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Rapunzel’s tower is a satellite. She can’t let down her hair—or her guard.

In this third book in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles series, 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.

Personal Thoughts

I read Scarlet last week and I fell in love with Marissa Meyer's world-building and characters, so when Cress came out on Tuesday, I immediately bought my copy of the book and read it. I had high hopes going into Cress and Marissa Meyer did not disappoint.

Cress as a character was so different from both Cinder and Scarlet. The latter possessed much more physical strength and bravery. Cress, on the other hand, was a lovely innocent and, at times, naive girl whose strength lay elsewhere ; her heart. The contrast between the heroines in this book is what made me enjoy Cress so much. I think I really connected with her because she reminded me so much of myself. Like Cress, outside of the blogging world, I'm quiet, shy and a die-hard romantic at heart. Cress' innocence and sweetness really made this book a winner for me. I initially thought her damsel-in-distress vibe would bother me, but I loved her so much. She was a dreamer, a romantic, but had such a brave soul, especially considering everything she had gone through. I will be dishonest if I mentioned that I didn't read this book for Captain Thorne. I adored his sassy attitude and flirtatious ways in Scarlet and I wanted more of him. Thorne really took me by surprise in this book. He still managed to charm my (and Cress') pants off, but he had this depth to him that made me fall for him even harder. He's sweet, genuine and just made my heart burst out of joy whenever he was in a scene. He comes across a big obstacle in Cress, but he didn't let that make him weaker. By the end, I loved him even more than in Scarlet.

The other main characters were as delightful as Cress and Thorne. Cinder, especially, has really grown over the course of the story and she has become pretty badass. Hers and Kai's reunion scene at the end of the book was so powerful and made me do a little happy dance. I was glad that they were finally together and I can't wait to see more of them in the final book. Wolf didn't have much of a role because he spent most of the time being very mopey, understandably so, but he had a couple of scenes with Scarlet that made me want to squish him because I loved him so much. The poor guy was hurting so much in Cress. I really hope Marissa Meyer doesn't emotionally torture him in the next book.

As always, the world-building was spectacular. Marissa Meyer's books are so easy to read because she makes sure to go into the depths and complexities of the world she crafts. There's undoubtedly a lot going on in the Lunar Chronicles, but Marissa Meyer does not leave any stones unturned when it comes to explaining the world-building. The plot too only seems to get more and more thrilling by the book and I'm so excited to see them all bring down the bat-shit crazy Queen Levana. She needs to go down! The only part that was less than stellar for me was the romance between Cress and Thorne. As much as I loved them individually, I did not care much for their romance. I thought it was quite weak relative to the other two couples we previously met. We know that Cress is head-over-heels for Thorne, but I wasn't too convinced by Thorne's side of the romance. He obviously cares for her, but at times I felt like the romance was one-sided. Hopefully, this will be a bit more developed in the next book. However, that did not prevent me from enjoying the book overall by any means.

I honestly can't recommend this series enough. It's just so rich, complex and beautifully written with some amazing characters. If you haven't started it yet, you truly are missing out. I can't believe I'm going to have to wait for a whole year before Winter comes out. The wait for the final book will be brutal. *sighs*

Rating

Cover : 5/5
Plot : 5/5
Characters : 4/5
Writing : 5/5

**Overall Rating : 4.5/5**