Cress (The Lunar Chronicles, #3) in Fantasy Buddy Reads

Jun 04, 2014 Jonathan Terrington rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: children-s-literature, favourites, fantasy, favourite-series, science-fiction, scifi-fan-challenge-2014, should-have-a-film

As a side note: this book series is endorsed by my sister!

Cress was by far the best book in The Lunar Chronicles to this point. The author clearly has reached the point at which she understands the rules of her world and her characters enough to construct powerful storytelling with them.

Reading The Crimson Campaign in conjunction with this proved to be an interesting exercise. In Brian McClellan's novel I saw little evidence of the world or character building that I had hoped. Opening up the fi
As a side note: this book series is endorsed by my sister!

Cress was by far the best book in The Lunar Chronicles to this point. The author clearly has reached the point at which she understands the rules of her world and her characters enough to construct powerful storytelling with them.

Reading The Crimson Campaign in conjunction with this proved to be an interesting exercise. In Brian McClellan's novel I saw little evidence of the world or character building that I had hoped. Opening up the first pages of Cress I saw immediate evidence of avoidance of sci-fi clichés and definite character building. That said I will admit that if you are not a fan of plotting that is so tight that you can see certain characters and scenarios being drawn together throughout the book then you might find this novel a touch forced. It was clear from the opening that Marissa Meyer was setting up particular romantic interests - the fascinating thing about the novel, however, is that these romantic interests are rarely straightforward. They lack the clichéd love-triangle factor.

Meyer's use of re-working fairytales is fascinating in that it does two things. The first is that it provides an immediate gimmick to hook in those who are aware of and understand fairytales. This gimmick provides a way for her to narratively structure each story as part of the whole - allowing the reader to notice that fairytales aren't necessarily as fragmented or unstructured/disconnected as they may appear. Secondly, her use of fairytales creates strong female protagonists. The real heroes of these stories are equally the men and the women - the sign of a well conceived story. And while the reader rarely goes inside the head of the male characters (perhaps a self-imposed limitation of the author), the reader can see the doubts, struggles and successes of the female characters. This is not some sci-fi/fantasy where the female characters sit off to the side holding tokenistic weapons, where the Princess is locked away in another castle. This is sci-fi/fantasy where the female characters are trapped and actively resist this entrapment (whether it be physical, mental or social confinement).

On the whole, given that reading this I felt very few bumps or noticeable failures in the novel I had to rate it five stars. It is easily the best in the series and I have high hopes for the next novel. I also fully recommend picking up a copy of the fist book in the series and reading that. It has the readabilty of Hunger Games or Divergent but also a sense of much greater depth. ...more

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Jun 18, 2018 Sha rated it it was ok

Here are the good things about this book;

Dr. Erland, and his backstory. I am a sucker for parent-child relationships and also parent-child tragedies. The morally ambigious doctor was also one of the few people in this book whose actions were always rational, and I appreciate that. Also, his speech to Cress made me cry.

I’m also tentatively excited for Jacin, who is a fun and Winter, who seems really interesting. I do like my Ophelias.

Here are the things about this book that I did not like;

Kai an ...more

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