Sinead's Reviews > Fairest

When you get an entire (albeit shorter) book devoted to the backstory of the evil character in a series, you know immediately there’s way more to this character than first meets the eye. That’s exactly what we get in Fairest.

I absolutely despised Levana in the first three books of this series. She was manipulative, sneaky and downright mean. And yet, Meyer wrote her so well that I couldn’t help loving the evilness of Levana’s character.

In Fairest, we see Levana as a 15 year old princess with a nasty and cruel older sister and parents that were distant her entire life. We get more information on many aspects of the previous books, such as the engineered wolf soldiers, Sybil, the virus and antidote, and why she uses her glamour. We also see the birth of Princess Selene (aka Cinder) and the infamous fire.

It was very interesting to read Levana’s start in life and it definitely gave me an insight into the kind of character she is. She was not born evil. Having distant parents, an incredibly unkind sister and an unrequited love affair all affected Levana’s self-esteem and self-worth until all she knew how to be was an evil queen who had to be in power, no matter what it takes.

Winter is also introduced here and shown how she came to live in the palace. I liked her immediately, and am now more excited than ever to read her story in the final book in the series.

While I don’t think I’ll ever like Levana (besides how well she was written) I enjoyed getting an insight into her character and this has definitely opened my eyes and made me more aware of her when Winter is released.