Winter by Marissa Meyer
Has anyone of you ever asked a book for his birthday? Who am I kidding, of course you have. Which is good because now you might be able to imagine this: I have an XXL family. Like, if we celebrate a birthday the house is FULL the ENTIRE DAY. So that means if you get a book, you will first have to suffer through 8 hours of "Hello happy birthday what cake do you want how are you doing in school are you happy you finally have your holiday are you gonna do anything fun with your friends now we should probably go home in a while hey see you next time okay bye!" and the book will sit on the dresser, TEASING YOU. TORMENTING YOU WITH ITS PRETTY COVER. That's mean. But I loved this book. It wrapped up everything so nicely and I'm just really happy with all the cool things that happened and I was sometimes kind of FURIOUS about the not so cool things that happened.
Summary: This is the fourth and last installment in the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. The first book is Cinder. Google it. Buy it. Read it. Fangirl it. Sequel it. Enjoy it. Devour it. Here, I just made your life so much better.
Rating:
5 stars.
Winter has arrived. The spoilers will follow.
(I can't believe the release date of this book didn't make for more GoT references.)
Okay. (That's what I type when I don't know where to start.) Even though I got through the book a little slowly, the book was everything I wanted it to be: kick-ass, fast, funny, cute, kind of moving at some points, and a very satisfying ending to our little Lunar adventure. There was one particular thing I was worried about, though. I didn't know if I wanted people to die. It was this whole conflict in my brain. (But both halves agreed that despite reading Fairest and feeling sorry for her, Levana could die. She had to go. With every page I read I wanted her to die more.)
The Characters
True to the Lunar Chronicles pattern, we got a new couple in this book added to the list of OTP's: Winter and Jacin. At first, I had serious issues with Jacin. I kind of felt like Thorne: No matter what he did, I still felt like if I ever got to enter this book and met him, I would both slap and hug him. I was still really angry about the whole selling us out to Sybil(l?) affair, but I really started to like him once I realized how totally f&cked &p Winter was. He was so sweet to her, and after a while it dawned on me how hard that must be for him.
Which brings us to Winter. The girl is a total wasteland. You thought she was crazy in the little we saw of her during Cress? NOT EVEN A SNIPPET. The whole-blood-on-the-walls thing is nasty, sure, but that's kind of still cool crazy. More Mara Deyer creepy crazy. But when Scarlet and Winter where about to be eaten by mutant soldiers and she started acting like a lunatic... That's beyond creepy crazy. Still, I really liked her. I liked how sweet and gentle and good-natured she was.
But what I REALLY REALLY LOVED was when Jacin almost killed her and she kissed him. First of all, I WAS THIS CLOSE to crying. Secondly, I was EVEN CLOSER to strangling Levana through the pages when she ordered Jacin to do it.
I'm still kind of sad about how she ended up going manic after killing Aimery, but more about the ending later on.
Then let's go back to the couple it all started with: Cinder and Kai. They stole my heart in book one and none of these couples have been able to make me squeal and giggle as much as these two, so they remain my favorites. I loved how Cinder grew so much as a character and how they had their little code word and how her head counted the kisses. It was just a lot of fun to read.
I've heard some people say that they didn't really like Scarlet and Wolf. But I did, and I will defend them until Stars Above has been properly reviewed and finished! That being said, this book made me panic a lot for them.
Mini-rant down below:
A part of the reason it took me so long to finish this King-size book was that at some points, things happened that left me either to stunned or to enraged to continue reading. In videogames, they call this rage quit. One of these, was when Wolf woke up in the 'hospital' and didn't seem to recall Scarlet. I was furious. AND REALLY SCARED. This couldn't happen. She couldn't make him forget everything. So I finished the chapter, slammed the book shut, and just sat there. Staring. No. But luckily everything turned out okay, as long as Wolf can compose his new insatiable hunger and doesn't eat the neighbors. (The last few chapters could have touched on that a bit more?)
Cress and Thorne were perfect together. I especially loved the scene in the palace when Cress finally said what she still felt for him, and he admitted that he liked her back. It legitimately almost made me cry.
There was also this part where Thorne and Kai were flying in this little shuttle and they had this hilarious conversation. Thorne is close to being the literary synonym of comedic relief.
Then we have our side characters.
Levana: freaking hated that b!tch.
Iko: I loved her. I wonder whether she ended up having a relationship with Kenney (spell check?)...
Aimery: hated him. From his creepy engagement to Winter (one of those moments when you scream at the book...) to his attempt to have Winter kill Jacin.
Maha: kind of a given she'd die. If main characters discover a not-so-essential-to-the-plot lost parent, the parent doesn't normally live through the book. Reading about her with Cinder standing between her friends watching and them not letting her go, though. That was just painful.
The Plot and Luna
I don't know why, and you'll probably hate me for it, but I kept comparing this book to Mockingjay. Fine, I know why. A. Mockingjay part 2 is like a blizzard roaming in my brain that won't go down until I watch the movie and move on with life. B. We were facing a similar government, and we were aiming at a similar goal: revolution. So that, and we were facing similar amounts of blood. It ended up feeling like fairy tales meet rebellion meet multiple POV's meet awesomeness meet lots of blood but less mayor characters dying. Which is good. I liked it. And this government obviously had a cool twist about it: mind manipulation. It adds the little something something to this particular corrupt leader that makes it a unique concept and not another dystopian novel. In other words: I barely had any problems. Except for one: I had serious issues with the word sector. Like for real.
I liked the Lunar culture and how we got to explore it a lot more in this book. I had only one issue with Luna as well: the name. I'm still in my Harry Potter mode for some part. It took me about a hundred pages to get used to the NAME.
Things I Wish Would Have Been Different
Even though this was Winter's story, I feel like we stopped focusing on her story line after Levana poisoned her with the apple. (Oh, look another rage quit.) Especially at the ending, she just doesn't get her fair share of attention. I get that Cinder had to get a lot of sh!t together at the end, including killing Levana, but I would have liked Cinder AND Winter to do it together, because Winter has the RIGHT to get back at the b!tch. Not just that, though. When Levana showed her real face and told Cinder how it had gotten that way, and Cinder reacted the way I expected her to do. But I wonder how Winter would have reacted, because she's such a good and compassionate person. I feel like it would have made that part even more chaotic and intense than it already was. On the other hand, there was a lot of bloodshed and so many controlling and fighting, so maybe Winter wouldn't have handled it.
Now let's get back to my conflicted brain halves.
One part of me didn't want any of the main characters to die, because I loved them so much.
And did I want Levana to win or to take one of my little poopsies away? No, of course not. (Even though I don't really HATE her, or love to hate her. I have a complicated reader-villain relationship with her.)
On the other hand, it did seem, bear with me, as if Marissa Meyer had sprayed chemical immortality on her characters before sending them into the final battle. I mean, it felt like literally every single civilian in that fight was dying except for them. That's not how war works. It means people die, even people you love. (I'm talking to you, Katniss.)
Not that I expected people to die. If I'd had to make a list of characters I thought were going to die, it would have been like this:
I've heard some people say that they didn't really like Scarlet and Wolf. But I did, and I will defend them until Stars Above has been properly reviewed and finished! That being said, this book made me panic a lot for them.
Mini-rant down below:
A part of the reason it took me so long to finish this King-size book was that at some points, things happened that left me either to stunned or to enraged to continue reading. In videogames, they call this rage quit. One of these, was when Wolf woke up in the 'hospital' and didn't seem to recall Scarlet. I was furious. AND REALLY SCARED. This couldn't happen. She couldn't make him forget everything. So I finished the chapter, slammed the book shut, and just sat there. Staring. No. But luckily everything turned out okay, as long as Wolf can compose his new insatiable hunger and doesn't eat the neighbors. (The last few chapters could have touched on that a bit more?)
Cress and Thorne were perfect together. I especially loved the scene in the palace when Cress finally said what she still felt for him, and he admitted that he liked her back. It legitimately almost made me cry.
There was also this part where Thorne and Kai were flying in this little shuttle and they had this hilarious conversation. Thorne is close to being the literary synonym of comedic relief.
Then we have our side characters.
Levana: freaking hated that b!tch.
Iko: I loved her. I wonder whether she ended up having a relationship with Kenney (spell check?)...
Aimery: hated him. From his creepy engagement to Winter (one of those moments when you scream at the book...) to his attempt to have Winter kill Jacin.
Maha: kind of a given she'd die. If main characters discover a not-so-essential-to-the-plot lost parent, the parent doesn't normally live through the book. Reading about her with Cinder standing between her friends watching and them not letting her go, though. That was just painful.
The Plot and Luna
I don't know why, and you'll probably hate me for it, but I kept comparing this book to Mockingjay. Fine, I know why. A. Mockingjay part 2 is like a blizzard roaming in my brain that won't go down until I watch the movie and move on with life. B. We were facing a similar government, and we were aiming at a similar goal: revolution. So that, and we were facing similar amounts of blood. It ended up feeling like fairy tales meet rebellion meet multiple POV's meet awesomeness meet lots of blood but less mayor characters dying. Which is good. I liked it. And this government obviously had a cool twist about it: mind manipulation. It adds the little something something to this particular corrupt leader that makes it a unique concept and not another dystopian novel. In other words: I barely had any problems. Except for one: I had serious issues with the word sector. Like for real.
I liked the Lunar culture and how we got to explore it a lot more in this book. I had only one issue with Luna as well: the name. I'm still in my Harry Potter mode for some part. It took me about a hundred pages to get used to the NAME.
Things I Wish Would Have Been Different
Even though this was Winter's story, I feel like we stopped focusing on her story line after Levana poisoned her with the apple. (Oh, look another rage quit.) Especially at the ending, she just doesn't get her fair share of attention. I get that Cinder had to get a lot of sh!t together at the end, including killing Levana, but I would have liked Cinder AND Winter to do it together, because Winter has the RIGHT to get back at the b!tch. Not just that, though. When Levana showed her real face and told Cinder how it had gotten that way, and Cinder reacted the way I expected her to do. But I wonder how Winter would have reacted, because she's such a good and compassionate person. I feel like it would have made that part even more chaotic and intense than it already was. On the other hand, there was a lot of bloodshed and so many controlling and fighting, so maybe Winter wouldn't have handled it.
Now let's get back to my conflicted brain halves.
One part of me didn't want any of the main characters to die, because I loved them so much.
On the other hand, it did seem, bear with me, as if Marissa Meyer had sprayed chemical immortality on her characters before sending them into the final battle. I mean, it felt like literally every single civilian in that fight was dying except for them. That's not how war works. It means people die, even people you love. (I'm talking to you, Katniss.)
Not that I expected people to die. If I'd had to make a list of characters I thought were going to die, it would have been like this:
- Queen Levana
- Any parents that might pop their head around the corner.
- Iko? Maybe?
- Some annoying characters we will meet in this book.
- Whoever comes in our way. HAHAHAHA!
When Cinder got shot in the heart, I was not worried. SHE IS A CYBORG. She can handle this. When she jumped off the roof? SHE IS A CYBORG... Wait never mind water get it. SHE IS THE MAIN CHARACTER. She can't die yet. I know we had multiple POV's but still. (I loved the wedding feast sequence though...) I was slightly worried about memory loss though, because of Wolf and Winter, but even that turned out alright.
Diversity
Maybe even the books' strongest point (okay now I'm exaggerating): its diverse set of characters and their pairings. I loved how she mixed up black and white and Asian AND how the most beautiful girl on all of Luna did not have skin as white as snow. It makes me feel like THERE IS REAL HOPE FOR HUMANITY. And that coming from me is saying something.
This also seems like a good moment to address diversity in books in general, and my hopes and wishes for the future.
We still have mostly white main characters, but there is hope.
I'm reading my first book with an LGBT main OTP after I finish Fangirl, which will be Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. I'm planning to touch on the subject again then.
Something that came to my attention a short time ago was the way we look at age gaps. Many (I would almost say most) couples in the books I have read have age gaps. Examples are Divergent, the Hunger Games, the 5th Wave, this book series, but also contemporary books like Fangirl. While I was trying to figure out what age I would make my own characters, I noticed the following: It felt weirder considering my female main character to be older than her love interest than the other way around. And that made me think. After some browsing and remembering the books I'd read, I realized that with an age difference, the boy is almost if not always older than the girl. Why is that? I'm going to talk about this at some point.
There's one last thing I want to happen (along a long list of other sh!t): having a white girl fall in love with a dark-skinned boy. I don't know why, but this seems like a more challenging thing to do for authors than the other way around. I consider blaming this on two things: 1. Some people's view of black people as more tough and even more violent than white people. (Bullsh!t...) 2. Our lingering male-female issues. Yes, man have testosteron, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're more dangerous. Still the idea of a black girl out on the street at 2 am seems less threatening to a lot of people than a black boy. Sad, but true.
There's one last thing I want to happen (along a long list of other sh!t): having a white girl fall in love with a dark-skinned boy. I don't know why, but this seems like a more challenging thing to do for authors than the other way around. I consider blaming this on two things: 1. Some people's view of black people as more tough and even more violent than white people. (Bullsh!t...) 2. Our lingering male-female issues. Yes, man have testosteron, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're more dangerous. Still the idea of a black girl out on the street at 2 am seems less threatening to a lot of people than a black boy. Sad, but true.
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