Book Review: Cress by Marissa Meyer

Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3) 

Author: Marissa Meyer
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Publication Date: February 4, 2014

 From Goodreads:
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.

Review:
I have been looking forward to reading this book for weeks now and I enjoyed every page, almost.  I love the new character Cress and I loved learning a little more about Lunar society but I want more! The slow pace in which this world is revealed is driving me crazy but it does keep me coming back.  With so many characters, Marissa Meyer decided to develop the different storylines in separate chapters.  On the one hand it made it easy to keep track of which storyline was the focus but on the other it made the book seem kind of choppy and I would rush one set of chapters in order to return to another character. 

As always I am particularly interested in the ways in which female and male characters will be presented and the relationships between them.  On the whole I continue to be pleased with Meyer's choices.  That said, with all these wonderful female characters I don’t understand why there aren’t more conversations between them and why they can’t develop genuine friendships.  Furthermore is there a significance to the fact that both Cress and Cinder were so in need of female friendship that they create and rely upon computer  generated friendships, (Cinder and Iko; Cress and “little sister”) yet when they have the opportunity to form female friendships with actual humans they are often awkward and uncomfortable?  I worry this aspect of the story reflects an underlying shift in society where women increasingly maintain and develop computer mediated relationships with other women rather than face to face personal interactions. 

Onto the male romantic heroes in the story.  Here I applaud Marissa Meyer for creating interesting, emotionally connected, and flawed characters.  Of course Captain Thorne represents the typical relationship phobic, good looking, sarcastic male lead but Emperor Kai and Wolf are nice alternatives.  Wolf’s response to the events that develop in this book were a little too simplistic but I appreciated what was being communicated (TRYING NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS).

This third book in the series has much to recommend and for those who haven’t started the series I would still strongly recommend all of the books but you might want to wait until we get the release date for book four, Winter, so that you don't have to wait like me.

Posted by: Sheri