Review: Winter

Title: Winter
Author: Marissa Meyer
Series: The Lunar Chronicles
Volume: 4
Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Re-Telling
Goodreads

A Quick Introduction: Cinder and her motley crew are heading to Luna to start a revolution- something that turns  out to be even more complicated than planned. Things seem to go wrong every turn, and they find themselves on Luna struggling to survive, much less lead an army and dethrone Levana.

Out of Ten: 7/10

Review at a Glance: A fairly satisfying conclusion to a sci-fi fantasy retelling.

Review: Well, that was a long one. Seriously, it breached 800 pages, which is not insignificant, especially for a YA novel. This was one of my most anticipated releases, and, it was more or less what I expected. It isn't that I didn't enjoy it, it just... didn't astound me either, I suppose. The series wraps up with a twist on Snow White- which was in a lot of ways further from its inspirational material than the others, because of how much of a life the story itself has taken on.

When I reviewed Cress, I mentioned that I was becoming aware that Cinder was becoming my favourite, and that held true in this book- her and Kai both finished the series as my favourites, both individually and as a pair. They're part of a pretty big cast, all of whom are very much individuals, and have varied relationships with each other- I really enjoy seeing Cinder's team in all of their eclectic glory. Though I generally enjoyed most of the characters, there were a few time that some of them felt a little inconsistent.

The plot is complex, alternating between multiple storylines; I'm not sure if there was just more going on this time around, but I really noticed it. In the other books, there was still a flow, but this one had moments of feeling scattered- and there was something about some aspects of the plot that felt almost repetitive. I'm not entirely sure how to explain it other than that.

That slightly disconcerting feeling aside, I really did have fun reading this one (can you tell I'm having a hard time not talking spoilers? I am). It was interesting to explore Luna after so long hearing about it, and I definitely did enjoy some aspects of the plot, even if others left something to be desired for me. The conclusion was generally satisfying, though I would have enjoyed an epilogue (and I hear their actually might be something in the works for the short story collection). One aspect of this series is that it really does maintain an almost fairytale-esque arc, in a way, while adding a whole lot of other stuff that gives it a really neat feel.

Overall, I have a had lot of fun reading this series, and it is probably a world that I'll be revisiting in rereads in not too long, and I am looking forward to the release of the short story anthology.