Book Review: Cress by Marissa Meyer

Synopsis:

In this third book in the Lunar Chronicles, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, now with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army.

Their best hope lies with Cress, a girl imprisoned on a satellite since childhood who's only ever had her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker. Unfortunately, she’s just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice.

When a daring rescue of Cress goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing prevent her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only hope the world has.

When I started reading Cress, I knew I was going to love it. I adored Cinder and Scarlet, and have hailed The Lunar Chronicles as one of the best YA series out right now.

I just didn’t understand how much I would love Cress.

The farther we get into this series, the more complex everything becomes. Cress has about 5 storylines happening at once, but they all weave together seamlessly, and each moves the plot along in a different way. There is never a dull moment, and especially once you reach the last one hundred pages or so, I was on the edge of my seat due to all the action and suspense.

So I would say a good majority of this book is about Cress (hence the title), but we also gets lots of Cinder, Kai, Dr. Erland, Thorne, and even a bit of Scarlet and Wolf. Cress was an interesting change of pace from Cinder and Scarlet; she’s younger (at least, she felt younger to me) and she’s completely inexperienced in practically everything except computers and hacking. And she’s madly in love with Carswell Thorne.

We got to see some of Thorne in Scarlet, but he really comes into his own in Cress, and they are adorable together. Cress is convinced he’s a noble hero, and while Thorne doesn’t believe her, it’s fun to see his transformation into one by the end.

There was a lot of tension with Kai and his engagement to Levana; poor Kai has to trudge through quite a bit of politics in Cress. He wants to keep his country safe, and he wants to make it a better place to live, but with Levana breathing down his neck, it gets pretty complicated. And can we all remember that Kai and Cinder haven’t seen each other since the end of Cinder? Not to spoil anything, but they may or may not reunite at some point in Cress.

There was some glorious foreshadowing for Winter, including Scarlet, a new character named Jacin (I can see so many possibilities already) and Princess Winter herself, and I can’t wait to get my hands on that book.

All in all, a ridiculous amount of action happens in this book. Luna is as deadly as ever, and Earth doesn’t know how to retaliate. Things are gonna get crazy in Winter, I can just feel it!

This book is filling the category “A Keeper” in my Full House Reading Challenge.