Cress by Marissa Meyer

Cress by Marissa Meyer
Series: The Lunar Chronicles, #3
Source: Gifted by the incredible Inky
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Publication Date: February 4, 2014

Rapunzel’s tower is a satellite. She can’t let down her hair—or her guard. 

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

Their best hope lies with Cress, who has been trapped on a satellite since childhood with only 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 goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing stop her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only ones who can.

"I'm scared of her, and her army, and what she can do. And everyone expects me to be strong and brave, but I don't know what I'm doing. I have no idea how to overthrow her. And even if I succeed, I have no idea how to be a queen. There are so many people relying on me, people who don't even know they're relying on me, and now they're dying, all because of some ridiculous fantasy that I can help them, that I can save them, but what if I can't?"

I originally started to write this review last night, but I could think of nothing to say. Nada. I'm a blank book, and there is nothing written in the pages of my mind that could properly describe exactly how I felt about Cress. But I'll try, and maybe you'll think I have something interesting to say about it.

I went into Cress with some big expectations... I was expecting to be wowed, and to a degree I was. This book takes us deeper into the world of The Lunar Chronicles, with the introduction of new plot and a few new characters. And intermixed with all these new characters are the characters that we know and love, like Scarlet, Iko, Cinder, Kai and Wolf. It was fun to see them again, and I enjoyed their group dynamic, but most of this one was all about Cress, one of the new characters.

Do you recognize the name? You should, it's on the front of the book. Cress was... interesting. I didn't like her as much as I liked Scarlet, but she's right up there with the original main character, Cinder. (If you can't tell, Scarlet is my favorite main character, but that may change with the next book. The peek we got at Winter was AMAZING.) But back to Cress. She's cute, really.  She's very innocent, very naive, and very unsure of herself, but I liked her. She was very nerdy, very easy to identify with... but mostly the epitome of a shy, quiet girl.

Just to screw with us, Thorne is the complete opposite. Cress has built him up in her mind to the point of hero status, which was cute, but unlikely. The glimpses that we got of Thorne show that he doesn't think of himself as a hero. Sometimes, he was, but most of the time... Thorne is just an average, normal kind of guy. That doesn't mean that I didn't like him, though! I did like him. But I feel like their romance was a little bit insta-lovish. Kind of. Like, a little bit. I liked it and all, and I didn't think the romance between them was stupid or anything (I actually thought it was adorable while reading) but the more I think about it, the more I realize that it was just a tad not perfect.

I liked that we saw character growth throughout the book - Thorne definitely became a better person, and Kai grew up a little more. I think he's shaping up to be a great leader - and I respect his character. I didn't get the point of views mixed up, but I do kind of want to call Cress Cinder. I'm not sure why - their characters are nothing alike, but I JUST DO.

Cress was nonstop twists and turns and new plot points - sometimes I felt like I would never be able to keep up, but I managed quite well. I'm really excited to see how this last book will turn out - especially since Winter is SNOW FREAKING WHITE, and OMG. Winter is totally going to rock - she's crazy. Like, "the walls are bleeding, but they don't believe me" crazy, and I'm going to have fun with her. And Jacin! :D

The worst part of Cress? (I hear you all saying "what? Worst part? What are you talking about?") It was the ending. Because now, no matter what I read... I'm stuck waiting on the next book in this series for A YEAR. AT LEAST. All in all, this was a really good continuation of the series, and I'm DYING for Winter.