Review: Cress by Marissa Meyer

Title: Cress
Author: Marissa Meyer
Series: Lunar Chronicles, Book 3
Genre: Young Adult Science-Fiction
Release Date: 4 February 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.

After the intense enjoyment I got out of both Cinder and Scarlet, I was PUMPED to read this book. I looked forward to the release, and even paid nearly $9 for the ebook - when my limit is more like $5.

To say I was disappointed is a bit of an understatement.

I've now waited eleven days to try and write this review. It's not that the book is bad, because it's not. But it definitely is a transition book. There's, almost quite literally, absolutely nothing happening throughout this whole book. I was bored out of my mind while reading.

So it's a bridge book. Lots of series have them. I get it, there's stuff that has to happen to get us to the climax. I just wish it'd been done so that I felt some investment, or felt like there was something going on. 85% of the book I was wondering when the hell something was going to happen other than traveling from here to there - this close to the end, traveling's not what I want to read about.

Another problem for me with this book was Cress herself. She names herself a damsel-in-distress. I can't stand damsels-in-distress. I want my girls to save themselves. To be a little fair to Cress, she does a pretty good job of contributing to the saving, and planning, and I think there's a good opportunity, and that Meyer is setting this up, for Cress to realize her own agency. Unfortunately, it didn't happen enough for me in this book.

In fact, there were a lot of character issues, in that I didn't feel like characters were acting 'in-character' or realistically. This one is harder for me to talk about without spoilers, so I'm going to be fairly vague. Something traumatic happens to one of the main characters - disabling traumatic - and it's just shrugged off. No big deal. 'Oh, I lost a leg ? No big deal. I'll just attach this wooden crutch to my knee and carry on walking.' WHAT? I can't buy that anyone could deal with this kind of thing so easily. I don't care how capable you are, or how much of a front you may be putting on. Nope, not buying it.

All that being said, the world still fascinates me. The story is still, over-all, interesting, and I can't wait for the final book: Winter. We got to meet Winter in this book, and I'm already half in love.

Long story, short: Slow, slow book - until the last 15%, where it picks up considerably and became fun to read again. Honestly, so little happens in this book though, that I think you could read a few key chapters, or maybe even the last 15%, and be prepared to finish out the series next year when Winter releases.

Grade: D+

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