Review: ‘Winter’ by Marissa Meyer

Princess Winter is admired by the Lunar people for her grace and kindness, and despite the scars that mar her face, her beauty is said to be even more breathtaking than that of her stepmother, Queen Levana.

Winter despises her stepmother, and knows Levana won’t approve of her feelings for her childhood friend—the handsome palace guard, Jacin. But Winter isn’t as weak as Levana believes her to be and she’s been undermining her stepmother’s wishes for years. Together with the cyborg mechanic, Cinder, and her allies, Winter might even have the power to launch a revolution and win a war that’s been raging for far too long.

Can Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter defeat Levana and find their happily ever afters?

This series is the queen of fairy tale retellings. But not the evil queen.

Okay, maybe slightly evil.

If you haven’t read the rest of the series, then don’t start with Winter, which is the fourth and final (as far as I know) book in the Lunar Chronicles. Instead you want to start with Cinder, which I reviewed here. The entire series is a five-star read for me, so you should do it. Do it now!

Winter is a huge book, at over 800 pages. I noticed because after an afternoon of binge-reading I had a sore wrist, and — despite my best efforts — my copy was the worse for wear by the time I was done. Some of the pages even fell out! Aaah! I didn’t notice how big it was because of the pacing, though; the story ticked along nicely.

As always, the fairy tale references to Snow White were there but didn’t dictate the story. Most of those references related to the titular character, Winter, but occasionally they were used in reference to her cousin Cinder — for example, Levana’s order that someone bring her Cinder’s heart. The seven dwarfs are incredibly subtle, so subtle I missed it at first, but I think they refer to the number of other main characters (excluding Jaicin, who is the “prince”): Cinder, Kai, Scarlet, Wolf, Cress, Thorne and Iko.

As far as the characters go, my favourite relationship is Cinder and Kai’s, far and away. ❤ My other favourite characters are Scarlet, for her sheer, brash defiance of everything and Iko, because Iko! Levana is suitably evil, although doesn’t really muster as much of a defence as I might have liked. But then, in a book with such a big ensemble cast, I’m okay with a little more tragedy-related feels than Winter has. (I’m a fan of Joss Whedon. Enough said.)

Still, if you want a sci-fi series with a fairy tale feel, some kissing and an actual, honest to goodness “they all lived happily ever after” (because it’s a fairy tale retelling and that’s obligatory), I highly recommend this entire series!