Spoiler Review: Winter by Marissa Meyer

Winter (The Lunar Chronicles #4)
Author:  Marissa Meyer
Publisher:  Feiwel and Friends, 827 pages
Publication Date:  November 10, 2015

From Goodreads:
Princess Winter is admired by the Lunar people for her grace and kindness, and despite the scars that mar her face, her beauty is said to be even more breathtaking than that of her stepmother, Queen Levana.

Winter despises her stepmother, and knows Levana won’t approve of her feelings for her childhood friend—the handsome palace guard, Jacin. But Winter isn’t as weak as Levana believes her to be and she’s been undermining her stepmother’s wishes for years. Together with the cyborg mechanic, Cinder, and her allies, Winter might even have the power to launch a revolution and win a war that’s been raging for far too long.

Can Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter defeat Levana and find their happily ever afters?

Review:

I liked this conclusion to the Lunar Chronicles, but I didn't love it.  Basically, it was my least favorite book of the series.  I loved the series, don't get me wrong, and I thought the book was really good (I rated it 4 stars), but I didn't really like Winter or Jacin and I didn't care about their love story.  I LOVED Cinder and Kai, Scarlet and Wolf, and Cress and Thorne.  I respected Winter and her choice not to use her Lunar abilities, but I never felt that connection to her that I felt with the rest of the group.  And Jacin…I really didn't like him.  That made it hard to love the book.  Maybe part of it was because they weren't the true focus of the book like the couples were in the other books…I don't know.

And even though Cinder and Kai were my favorite couple, once again they aren't together enough.  They're the only couple who doesn't spend a significant amount of time together and I was hoping we would get that in this book, but we didn't.

And I was soooo disappointed with what happened to Wolf.  Why couldn't they reverse his operation?  Why did he have to spend the rest of his life as a beast man?  It was amazing that Scarlet didn't seem to care, but HE did.  He didn't want it, it was his worst fear.  I mean, come on, this is a fairy tale, I would have bought that they could reverse it.  I just thought that was unnecessary to the story and it made me sad.

Finally, the big fight between Cinder and Levana was pretty meh.  And I didn't buy that just having her real face revealed would weaken her so much.  I read somewhere that Marissa Meyer said that she wished she hadn't made the Lunar abilities so strong because it put her in a tough position in the series and I think it shows with how Levana was defeated.  

So I know I've just complained about the book.  I read it pretty much in one sitting (even with it being so long) and I loved the touches of Snow White we got (I like retellings that are REALLY loose) and the cast of characters (at least six of them) were AMAZING.  Thorne and Cress ended up being my favorite couple in the end and their story and what happened with them was the most satisfying for me. Definitely recommend the series, I'm a huge fan, but maybe having eight main characters was too much.  

What did you think of the book?

Posted by:  Pam