Cress by Marissa Meyer

Cress is the third book in the Lunar Chronicles series. Told from the point of view of almost every character in the story, the complicated storyline begins to solidify. Cress fits seamlessly into the fold of the story, just as Wolf and Scarlet did. Any reservations about another character being added should be cast aside, because the almost 500 page book doesn't leave anything out. Cinder even gets a little romance *wink wink*.

Anyone who's read my reviews about the first two books will know how much I adore this series. Even with those high expectations, Cress absolutely did not disappoint. In fact, this is probably the best book in the series so far. There is a lot of action, and each character goes through a different part of the journey, so it never seems tedious. The twists are nonstop, but it isn't ridiculous. Loose ends that are all but forgotten from previous books jump into place, and resolve themselves perfectly. The planning that must have gone into this series is incredible, because not only does it have a creative and original storyline, but it ties in the traditional fairytale stories as well.

The romance is subtle, but that's something to be appreciated in itself. Since most of the original fairytales consist of the protagonists falling hopelessly in love with each other at first sight, it's important to reserve the reality factor in retellings. Thus while the romance may seem slow, it's a subtle undercurrent throughout the entire book, and is just enough to keep you satisfied. While the characters all mirror their ancient origins, Meyer has managed to thoughtfully bring a new dimension to their actions and words that brings them to life more realistically than the original stories.

Since this is the third book in the series I'm trying to be very careful about not revealing andy spoilers, because a lot changes in this book from the second. I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone who has the time to dedicate to really sitting down and reading this series. The only thing that I find a little disappointing is that because of the complexity of the storyline, I imagine it will take more than a year for the next book to come out. A quick search has revealed a late 2015 release date on November 10th. The title is Winter, without an illustration yet. It will be interesting to find out if there will be another princess added to the story, or if the main cast will remain the same. Based on the title, I believe we will be seeing more of Queen Levana's stepdaughter, the frail princess who we were briefly introduced to in Cress.

Four Stars

Rosalie Williams

Cress on Goodreads

The Iron King by Julie Kagawa

Meghan Chase must follow her best friend, the infamous fairy Puck into another world to save her brother who has been replaced by a nasty, biting child.

The writing in all of Julia Kagawa's books is fantastic. While the storyline didn't appeal much to me, after reading her Immortal Rules book I decided I had to give it a try, and I'm glad I did.

Now, the first thing I have to rant about quickly is the similarity between this book and the Immortal Rules. While I like the story, I feel like they are exactly the same, just one with vampires and one with fairies. In both the girl's life changes early in the beginning, and has to go on a quest or journey. They both meet boys who eventually help them and fall in love, and they both achieve their goals only to be separated from their loves. So, yeah, very similar. If I had to choose, hands done the Immortal Rules was better.

Now, on to Meghan. Something I've noticed about Julie's books is people are very mean to the heroine. While I realize the world she lives in is dangerous, not everyone is mean like that. Every turn Meghan is making a new enemy and people are trying to hurt her. To me there wasn't enough balance, and I did get tired of the animosity always targeted at Meghan, and I ended up not liking her very much either.

The Prince, yum. I really did like the romance in this book. However, like the Immortal Rules series, they are separated at the end! Why can't her romances have happy endings? Unfortunately I read the description of the second book and I don't know if I'll be reading it simply because it sounds dumb. Enough said.

The story itself was exciting with basically nonstop action, and a lot of really fun magical scenes. I wish the relationships had developed more, but all in all I did enjoy it, though I definitely wouldn't call it a page turner.

Three Stars

Rosalie

The Iron King on Goodreads

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

After a confusing reaction to the first book, I had a lot of trouble convincing myself to read the second. I'll admit that after retrieving it from the library I allowed it to sit dormant on my shelf for a week or so. I can't hide that I was procrastinating reading it. But now that I have I am very glad that I did.

First I've come to the conclusion that the reason the first book left such an unsatisfying aftertaste in my mouth is because of the romance that I witnessed. Prince Kai was pretty great, but as soon as he became emperor he lost all his freedom, and so the romance in the book failed pretty miserably. But I am happy to say that the romance in the second is much better.

Another apprehension I had about Scarlet is I didn't like the idea of new characters being introduced into the story. But in the end I can say I like Scarlet and Wolf's story more than I liked Cinder's. Cinder had a rather boring tale throughout this book, but Wolf and Scarlet were thrilling and so much fun to read.

At one point something happened that upset me so much I put the book down and didn't pick it up again for a solid two days. I was so afraid that what happened in the first book was happening again in the second–the romance was being ruined. But in the end that moment only made the ending more exciting, and so much better when Scarlet and Wolf resolved themselves.

It's a long book, I will say that. There's a lot of plot and character development throughout it though. It's basically two stories in one, so it makes sense to be so long. The font is rather wide and big, so it doesn't actually take too long to get through. The story is so interesting that you can blow through fifty pages without even realizing it, I assure you that.

Meyer did a good job of balancing the stories. Sometimes with story and personality breaks, the author will cut at the climax of one person's story, to something less interesting going on with another character. This is a dire pitfall because then the reader is tempted to skip that chapter (as I will admit to doing more than once), and in good writing every chapter should be important, and the reader unable to skip a chapter. As I said Meyer did a good job of avoiding this, and keeping the reader engaged.

There are two more books in the series, or that's what I've been told. I can say I am much more excited going into the third than I was going into the second. Meyer is a gifted writing, crafting a world wonderful, exciting and imaginative, that you can't help but fall in love with. If the next two books are as good as this one was, I think it's safe to say this will be one of the best works of YA writing we've seen in the current decade.

Four Stars.

Rosalie

Scarlet on Goodreads

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

This was an enormous book. From beginning to end there is so much in the plot that I feel as if I've read multiple stories in one. While I very much appreciate the skill of an author that can create such natural flow and extended story lines, it also makes for a very difficult review.

So I suppose I shall start at the beginning.

Katsa. She is an incredible heroine, and I very much appreciate the struggle she has with her Grace as well as the jobs she is given. However I will admit sometimes she's too volatile for me to like. There is a lot of character development with her from beginning to end as far as her interactions with other people, however, there are some aspects in which she doesn't change at all, and those are the ones that bothered me the most.

Po. Let's start with the name, shall we? It bothers me, I'm not going to lie. Initially Cashore tries to paint this strong boy who is a worthy opponent to Katsa. He's big and powerful and has startlingly intense eyes. But this image wavers throughout the book, and I wish she'd put more effort into his character. In different parts of the book it felt like I was reading about a different person. Sometimes he's strong and manly but also a good friend to Katsa, and the next he's weak and kind of pathetic. I think if Cashore had put as much effort into Po's character as she did Katsa's, I would have appreciated him a lot more in the story.

There's a lot of introduction and then disappearance of characters. Most the the characters you meet at the beginning of the book aren't in the majority of it, and then when they're brought up again later you've forgotten who they are!

The world building in this was fantastic. Katsa travels all over the place, and you get a very good sense of the world she's living in. Most of the people she encounters are given good depth and many of them are quite interesting. However, I feel like a lot of them should have played larger roles, and developed stronger ties to Katsa. This tags along with the character introduction and then disappearance that I mentioned before.

The romance in this was interesting, to say the least, and not always in a good way. Po really gets into Katsa's mind, but she's a huge baby about it. I don't think their relationship was dealt with in the right way, however once accepted it was very fun. But there's also something serious about it that I hate to bring up but I really have to. There's a lot of casual sex, and Katsa even says she's fine with Po loving other women, which I don't think is a good base for a YA romance. To my dismay, upon reading the reviews of the next book, Fire, it seems this is a theme with Cashore. While I don't have anything against people having sex before marriage, this is marketed to young children, even middle school age, and I don't think that's the morals that they should be reading.

All that aside, I really did enjoy the book. It had an exciting plot with lots of action, and never a dull moment. While I wish Katsa and the characters hadn't been separated for so long, it wasn't hard to stay interested.

The next book, Fire, has some extremely mixed reviews. I have a few things on my plate currently, but afterwards I do think I'll make an effort to read it. The ratings are either five stars or one star pretty much, so it would be nice to get my own take on it. From what I've read it seems significantly darker than this book, which I think could be good, because a lot of aspects of this world were left unexplored.

Three Stars

Yours Truly,

Rosalie

Graceling on Goodreads

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Cinder was a hard sell for me, and even finished I can't decide whether or not it's a winner. Fairytale retellings are like candy to me, so much fun and yet so romantic and lovely following those original story lines. Classic princess tales like Beauty and the Beast, the Little Mermaid, will leave be crying every time. So I was very excited about a Cinderella retelling. But I'll say this book left me with very mixed feelings. I don't usually lay things out in lists like this, but I feel it's the only way to organize my very muddled thoughts in this case. So here goes! Things I did not like: 1. The cyborg issue-Obviously she's still mostly human. We have people nowadays with prosthetic limbs, and they aren't treated like minorities… 2. The ending—She shows up in a gross dress with gross gloves. I get that it's supposed to show how much of an underdog she is and how what else could she do and all. But come on. Cinderella is supposed to show up and surprise everyone with her beauty, not like she crawled out of the gutter. 3. Her reasons for not attending the ball—Even now I'm not quite sure what they are. I guess she wanted to escape that night, but Prince Kai asked her to go! Why not leave the next night? 4. The whole immunity scam by the doctor—Had the doctor not lied to her the whole time and just straight up told her she was the missing princess, a lot of things could have been avoided. 5. Prince Kai—Okay he was sweet, but really he kind of annoyed me. I think his character lacked personality. 6. Decision making—Decision making in this book was down the drain. Half the choices Cinder made ahd me slapping my forehead in disbelief. Come on hun, have some common sense please! For example, not telling Prince Kai you're the lost princess…really dumb my friend. Things I did like: 1. The lunar thing—Okay, that was brilliant. A branched off race of human evolution living on the moon? Bravo. Original, and very possible. I wish she had gone into their society deeper. 2. Lost princess—Even though I called it from the beginning, I still really liked it! 3. Mechanic aspect—I liked that about Cinder's character. I think it added an edge to the story that made it more fun than if she'd been a baker or something. 4. Science—As a Medical buff I enjoyed the little bit of science we got exposed to. So as you can see the did not like list is longer than the liked list. But that's human nature, isn't it? We can always complain better than we can compliment. Either way, I enjoyed the book, but I was a little off put throughout the entire story. I am planning on reading the next book, and I am looking forward to it, although I do have my reservations. I think the conclusion to this story could either be fantastic or a total train wreck. Three Stars Rosalie Cinder on Goodreads