Cress (The Lunar Chronicles, #3) in Once Upon a Time...

Jan 16, 2014 Stephanie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2015, hardcopy

I'm a huge fan of this series and I feel like it just gets better and better. I was in a bit of a reading slump when I started this book and I have no idea why and it took me a while to read, a lot longer than I had expected but that had nothing to do with the book itself because it was amazing and I am crazy excited for book 3.
I am simply in love with all of these characters and the addition of Cress was perfect she is so naive and adorable and against all of the dark and brooding people, well ...more

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Oct 03, 2014 Diane rated it really liked it

Shelves: romance, kindle, young-adult-fiction, 4-star, fairy-tale, light-reading, ya, heroines-you-can-like, 2014-read

This is good.

Not going to bother with a long-winded review because either you've read up to here in the series and you're already going on with this one, in which case my review would just be "this is good!" fist-bump. Or you've read up to here in the series and you are somehow not interested in this one, in which case nothing I saw is probably going to convince you.

As with the others in the series, this book does a great job of following the original fairy tale (Rapunzel) in a modern and sci-fi ...more

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Aug 10, 2014 Rachmi rated it liked it

Shelves: ebook, romance, retelling-and-or-inspired-by, sci-fi-steampunk

3.5 stars

After the awesome Scarlet, I have a very high hope to this book. I thought it'll be as awesome as Scarlet, well...don't get me wrong it is indeed a very good retelling. It just doesn't live my expectation, not that much.

First thing that I notice and made this book is quite different than the first two book is it is much more detail than both Cinder and Scarlet. It's a good thing actually, as I think I need more detail and explanation in Cinder's setting and worldbuilding. Unlike New Be 3.5 stars

After the awesome Scarlet, I have a very high hope to this book. I thought it'll be as awesome as Scarlet, well...don't get me wrong it is indeed a very good retelling. It just doesn't live my expectation, not that much.

First thing that I notice and made this book is quite different than the first two book is it is much more detail than both Cinder and Scarlet. It's a good thing actually, as I think I need more detail and explanation in Cinder's setting and worldbuilding. Unlike New Beijing, I can picture the Sahara desert and a couple places in Africa easily. The satellite and Rampion aren't hard to imagine either. Unfortunately it also makes the unnecessary things much more detail. There are a lot of things that I'm not sure I need to know that detail. Thus, it makes the book much longer than I think it needed. It feels dragged out in second and third part of the book.

As the main character, Cress is quite different from Cinder and Scarlet. She's so naive, though it's understandable since she spends most her life alone, trapped in a satellite. On the other hand, her naivete is sometimes annoyed me. It's like it's so hard for her to understand that real life on earth isn't as easy as she imagine. She keeps picturing herself becomes someone else in somewhere else. In a way, it's kinda cute but I'm also a bit bored when she does it so many times. Yet, at the end of the last page, I think I liked her as a character. She's an awesome hacker and her role is as important as Cinder and Scarlet. And I still love other characters, though Throne is more serious and reserve (I missed his personality in Scarlet) and Wolf's more emo here.

I really loved the way Marissa Meyer builds the story. The pace is perfect. Some chapters can make my heart beats fast while other chapters are quite calm and give me times to understand more about Lunar and their power. Although there are three different stories here, all of them have enough time to tell their story. I don't feel like one story overlap or overshadow others. It fits well. But I also have to say that I don’t quite like things that seem too coincidence happen to the characters. It feels like they always end up at the right and/or wrong time in right and/or wrong places and just feels too easy for them.

It isn’t the best of the series so far but I still love the Lunar Chronicles and can’t wait for the next installment, Winter.
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Jun 17, 2014 Sam at A Journey Through Pages rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites, fairytales-legends-myth-etc

Review from A Journey Through Pages

Finishing Cress left me with a similar sensation to the first time I read Scarlet, that I liked it, but not as much as I hoped I would. I think for me, the Lunar Chronicles are a series I have to reread, because for some reason I enjoy them better the second time around. Honestly this makes them more valuable as books than those that I read once, enjoy immensely and never pick up again. These books have a lasting power.

Cress sees the continuation of the overrea Review from A Journey Through Pages

Finishing Cress left me with a similar sensation to the first time I read Scarlet, that I liked it, but not as much as I hoped I would. I think for me, the Lunar Chronicles are a series I have to reread, because for some reason I enjoy them better the second time around. Honestly this makes them more valuable as books than those that I read once, enjoy immensely and never pick up again. These books have a lasting power.

Cress sees the continuation of the overreaching plotline from Cinder with the addition of the characters from Scarlet, plus the new plotline taken from the fairy tale "Rapunzel". "Rapunzel" happens to be one of my favourite fairy tales, though I still don't know why. I remembered watching closely when I heard Disney were going to get their hands into it (long before the general public knew), the pain when it got shelved again and the joy when it was brought back and designs were released. I went to see it opening night. I also wrote my own interpretation of the story in the story telling medium of Visual Novels.

One interesting thing that I have taken from these different versions is that Rapunzel ends up being characterized the same way: naive and awkward. But really, realistically how else is a girl supposed to be when trapped in a tower for so long? Cress is certainly my favourite version I have read. The way she is written and presented as a character once again solidifies what I stated in my review of Scarlet, that Meyer does characters strong and well. The relationship is also my favourite of the three presented so far in the series, it's adorable, quirky and tentative. Both of them are out of their depths and it's wonderful.

Though the characters are the stars of the books, the plot also continues to hold my attention, which after three books of it is not an easy task.

The biggest issue I had while reading the book can only get worse, unfortunately with the final installment. With each book, there is an increase of characters and plotlines. Last book, the balance was perfect. This time around, with Cress I started to feel a little overwhelmed. The story of Rapunzel got shafted a bit in the end, having to bow to getting the characters to where they're supposed to do so the main plot doesn't fall apart. Unlike in the first two books, this time I can see obviously where bits from the fairy tale were forced it. It was less natural.

I do think that this is something that will improve upon rereading and honestly I'm being a bit strict, perhaps, but I feel as though Cinder and Scarlet have set a bar.

All of that said, I am incredibly intrugued by the charactera of Winter and her probably beau and cannot wait to read them.

Are you not reading this series yet? Seriously? Get on it! Even if you're not a fairy tale person, it's a great YA Scifi story. Though of course loving fairy tales increases it's enjoyability. I'm also starting to believe that very few authors do characters as well as she does. Pretty much I recommend this to everyone. Read it!

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Jul 11, 2012 Katie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

The adventure continues in Cress!

The amount of action in this series just keeps getting bigger and better with every book. Things continue to heat up in this third installment and now the gang is getting ready to launch their first strikes against Levana. The first being to Save Cress! As Cinder digs deeper and more and more secrets are being revealed it is soon clear that it will take all that they have and as many allies as they can get to take down Levana. There was so many new mysteries clea ...more

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