Winter
by Marissa MeyerGenres: Young Adult, Science Fiction
Length: 23:00
Published on November 10th 2015
Pages: 800
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? Fans will not want to miss this thrilling conclusion to Marissa Meyer's national bestelling Lunar Chronicles series.
I loved the rest of the books in this series – a science fiction retelling of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White. The books have been smart and inventive in reimagining the stories in a world where Earth is vulnerable to Lunar people who are able to control minds. That’s why I’m ultimately disappointed in this last book in the series featuring the story of Snow White.
Winter is the step-daughter of the Lunar Queen, Levana. Levana was the sister of the former Queen. When her sister died she attempted to kill her sister’s child, the rightful heir to the throne. Unbeknownst to Levana, the child was smuggled to Earth and healed by making her a cyborg. Now Linh Cinder is leading a rebellion to take back her throne from the cruel Levana.
Winter is known for her stunning beauty and her refusal to use her ability to manipulate minds. Refusing to do so is driving her insane. She hallucinates a lot and rambles incoherently. She is such a vapid heroine that she drove me crazy. Maybe the problem was that I was listening to this on audio. I sped it up to 1.5 times normal speed just so her ramblings didn’t take so long. All she does the entire time is be a hinderance to everyone else in the book. She has no agency. She doesn’t make many decisions at all. The whole story just washes over her. Her one decision to try to go recruit some soldiers to the rebel cause is based entirely on, “I’m pretty and nice so of course they will follow me.” Read that in the breathiest voice ever and you’ll get the idea of the audio.
I know that the story of Snow White and the evil Queen is based entirely on looks but I was really hoping that there was going to be more to this story than that. Levana has enslaved her people and engineered and released a plaque on Earth and killed anyone who upset her but the plan is to show people that she isn’t a legitimate ruler because she is actually ugly under her glamour? Come on. I was hoping for something with more substance.
And the ending? Let’s just say there is a lot of “Why don’t you let go of all your goals and marry me instead?”
The rest of the books are great and maybe this one wouldn’t have been so bad if I had read it instead of listening to it so I didn’t have so much time to dwell on the inconsistencies.
