Review: Cress by Marissa Meyer

There is a lot of hype surrounding this book, more than the two before it in 'The Lunar Chronicles', and after having read this book, I can see why. 'Cinder' and 'Scarlet' are works of art and are simply amazing, but 'Cress' brings together the different storylines in such an exquisite and beautiful way that I do not know how it can be bettered. It puts the characters through trouble and turmoil, there is heartbreak and loss, but even with all of that, I still felt happy at the end of the book. I felt happy for the direction that this series is going in and, of course, for the starting to blossom relationships between Cinder and Kai and Throne and Cress.

With each new book in this series Meyer manages to introduce to us a new female heroine who we can fall in love with and side with. We get to know their inner workings and feel like we are sure about what we know about them, then we get to see them from another character's perspective and realise that they were not who they perceived themselves to be, but someone ever better because of their differences and their imperfections.

I would love to go into detail with everything that happened in this book, but it is simply far too long for me to do so. I'm not saying that its length is a downside, in fact it was something that I really liked about this book as I felt that with the ones before I would have liked to spend a lot more time in that world and with this book I finally got the opportunity to.

One of the key points of this book was to introduce Cress to us, I mean, just look at the title of the book. Something that is definitely one of my favourite things about this series is the fact that each story is loosely based on a fairytale and it took me a while to pick up certain points that related to the fairytale of Rapunzel, but I was overcome by Meyer's brilliantness when I realised how the story fitted with the age old classic. Thorne's blindness was something that I didn't realise was part of the fairytale at first, as over the years I have read many versions of the story, some with the Prince's blindness in some not. Looking back, I guess that Thorne's name could be linked to the story as well as originally the Prince became blind when his eyes were stabbed with thorns. Little links like that really boost my love for this series.

This book started to deal with Cinder's growing power more and even though she was practicing throughout the whole book, it wasn't until the final few chapters that we realised what she was capable of and the discovery of that really gives me confidence that in the future books they will be able to overthrow Levana and take control. In a way though, Cinder's growing power is a scary thing and I can see why she is worrying about becoming like Levana as power is a thing that can be hard to control once you get too much of a taste for it.

I feel like I cannot talk about this book without talking about the relationships within it and by that I do not just mean the romantic ones. The bond between a father and his daughter is something that I always find special and to have that bond severed before it could fully be formed has a detrimental effect on both parties. Of course it is more than harsh for the mother as well, but this book dealt with the idea of hope of recovering what Dr Erland had had pulled from his grasp and the short-lived joy when Cress was finally returned to him. It was a bittersweet reunion, but I'm so glad that it was included.

With romantic relationships, I do like the idea of Cress and Thorne as a couple, but I have to say that Cinder and Kai are the couple that I'm rooting for most. In the first book the feelings that both shared were expressed on the page, but they never were truthful to each other about them and I so wanted them to be. Finally, two books later, their feelings have been admitted and I am over the moon. I can see a good future for them, well, after they've dealt with saving the world.

In conclusion, this book is so good I can't find an appropriate adjective to describe it; I don't know of any that will do it justice. In the next book I'm excited to find out more about Lunar, as the book will be told from Princess Winter's perspective, and know the risks from this new strand of letumosis and whether it will threaten any of my beloved characters. I don't know how I will be able to wait much longer for it even though I've only just finished 'Cress'!

(Goodreads parallel)