Hi guise, this is a review of Marissa Meyer's Fairest, which is the prequel for The Lunar Chronicles series.
Let us squee over excitement for the cover.
I am a huge fan of the series that for every time I read the books, I feel a joyous happy feeling. Unfortunately, I did not feel that way for Fairest. Maybe, it was because the novel was not supposed to be happy. But overall, I wasn't really fond of the book. I would have written a review for this blog around early February when I read this but I had to work on a review for my college's paper. It was agonizing and I could not be as personal or in depth to detail compared to my looser reviewing. Since this was for a paper, I had to write it for someone who has never read the book and remove personal possessives such as I and we. Underneath this paragraph will be the article I wrote. Hope you guise enjoy!
XOXO,
Dee
Over the recent years, a series has taken a hold for readers
and fans alike. The Lunar Chronicles is a New York Times Bestselling Series
written by Marissa Meyer. Currently it is #2 on the bestselling series list. The
series takes place in a dystopian futuristic world in which the citizens are
affected by massacres and deadly plagues. Refreshingly compared to other
dystopian series such as The Maze Runner,
The Hunger Games and the Divergent
series, The Lunar Chronicles does not have the theme of being in a sorted
society. It is based more on the struggles of the four protagonists as they
work together to fight for honor, freedom and independence.
Each novel within
the series is based on a fairy tale character with four different central
protagonists. Though there are some parallels to the manga Sailor Moon in Cinder. Despite
the shift between protagonists, Meyer seems to magically center each novel,
linking the current main protagonist, the past protagonists and minor
characters from separate plots that eventually become a universal story web.
Starting in the series is Cinder which
is based on the fairytale Cinderella, revolves around Cinder, a 16-year-old
mechanic who deals with struggles with her family and being a cyborg. Moving onto
Scarlet, based on Little Red Riding
Hood, 18-year old-Scarlet is searching for her missing grandmother when the
authorities refuse to help. Cress, which
is based on Rapunzel, follows 16-year-old hacker Cress and her journey to
freedom. Closing off the series will be Winter, based off of Snow White. Winter,
will face her stepmother, Levana in her tirade of overpowering her.
Fairest is the latest addition to the
series. The novel follows the beginnings of the main antagonist of the series
Levana and how she became a menacing queen. As with the other characters,
Levana parallels the evil queen in Snow White. Though for fans of The Lunar Chronicles,
the release of Fairest fills in the
long gap in between Cress in February
2014 to the upcoming release of Winter in
November 2015. It serves as the book that answers the questions left unattended
in previous novels and the origins of the characters Cinder and Winter,
protagonists of their respective novels.
When encountering
Levana first in Fairest, she appears
to be a naïve, spoiled version of the person she currently is. Recently, her
parents were killed by assassins and the throne will be handed to her
beautiful, cruel older sister Channary. Levana is jealous and resentful of her sister becoming
the queen since she fools around with romantic escapades and neglects her
duties. She struggles to find her own happiness since her sister denounces and
tortures her and deals with heavy body issues with mutilations on her face from
an accident. Insecurely, Levana hides her face with the illusion of the Lunar
gift with the scars. Additionally besides the inhumane treatment, the
relationships between Levana and the people around her is deflected by a
psychological barrier that isolates her into lunacy. The barrier eventually
leads to her current motives and personality in the current novels.
This
was not the best piece of work written for this series. Comparing Fairest to
the first three novels of The Lunar Chronicles is like tasting a dry slice opposed
to a whole frosted cake. The lengthy,
well-detailed chapters of the regular novels were reduced to sections that were
back-to-back within each other. It is understandable that the context of
Fairest would not contain the quirky, happy moments in Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress that balanced serious moments. But
considering the novel was not meant to be a completely happy one, it would have
been preferable to see Levana with happier moments to completely empathize with
her. There
were also moments that weresickening in Levana’s character such as manipulation and
sexual situations. Additionally, some of the questions answered from previous
novels could have been answered in the novels themselves.
Though Fairest is
a prequel to Cinder, Scarlet, Cress and Winter, it does
not contain the same whimsy and adventure the usual novels did. The prose of
the novella is a total blow to the buildup of the first three novels. But there
is hope with Winter to make up the
blow with the style similar to the first three novels. But the novel is a good
placement to answer questions not answered within the first three novels and
the final novels. It is recommended for a person who has never read the first
three novels to consume this between Cress
and Winter in order to gain a full
understanding of past references. The novel itself is not worth a buy or reread
since the basic ideas of plot can be absorbed in one sitting. To be fair, the
novel was a miss for the excitement of the series. But, do not hold the
opinions of this novel to be on the same structure of the main novels. Overall,
the main series is an exciting one that should not be missed.
