Review: Fairest: Levana's Story

Fairest: Levana's Story
Author: Marissa Meyer
Published: January 27th, 2015
Hardcover, 222 pages
5 Gold Stars

(summary from Goodreads)

In this stunning bridge book between Cress and Winter in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles, Queen Levana's story is finally told.

Mirror, mirror on the wall
Who is the fairest of them all?

Fans of the Lunar Chronicles know Queen Levana as a ruler who uses her "glamour" to gain power. But long before she crossed paths with Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress, Levana lived a very different story - a story that has never been told... until now.

Marissa Meyer spins yet another unforgettable tale about love and war, deceit and death.

It takes a certain kind of author to make me feel sorry for a villain. Marissa has woven a tale that stands on its own in the wonderful series of hers. The Lunar Chronicles blew me away from the very start and Queen Levana has been a terribly evil villain from the beginning. It just got worse the more she discovered about Cinder, the more Scarlet hid from her and more Cress defied her. So we go back to the beginning, before Levana was queen, before Cinder or any of the others were even born, and started to learn about what made Levana tick.

Her life starts out horribly. Her older sister and future queen, Channery, is the most awful older sister. She uses Levana and destroys everything good about her. Levana hides her true face behind glamours, and hides her loving feelings for the one guard who always seems to pay attention to her. The closer Channery gets to the throne, the more Levana seethes beneath the surface. The fonder she grows for her guard, the more cruel Channery becomes. So when she dies and Levana takes over the throne until Princess Selena, Channery's daughter, is old enough, things change for the worse. Levana is a good ruler. She wants what's best for Luna and will do anything to protect her country. But she is not the queen, she is only holding the throne and it isn't long before thats not enough for her and she plans a way to get rid of the princess. Anyone who has read the rest of the series will see how this plays into it, and I loved seeing the back story come to life. Levana marries the guard and in so becomes the step-mother to baby Winter, someone we will soon learn more about in the final chapter of this series.

Levana's life is one of horror, deceit and unrequited love. Though she marries, she is never loved for who she is and continuously tries to be someone she is not. She takes her anger out on Luna, on Earth and on anyone who gets in her way. By the end, she is the cruel woman we know and hate, but the way she got there is heartbreaking. It's hard not to feel sorry for her and to understand why she is now the way she is, even though that person is an awful human being. Marissa created so much more drama, such a bigger world and dug me deeper into a story I'm already so far into. There wasn't anything happy about this book, not like the love stories we see in the rest of the novels. I wanted a better ending for Levana, I wanted her to get the love she wanted and to live happily ever after, but then we wouldn't have a villain or a story, so I know it will make Winter fantastic to read. I can't wait to see more of Levana, get to know Winter more, and see how this series plays out. An amazing addition to the this series and a book I won't soon forget. It was short, but boy did it pack a punch.

"The guilt and the horror and the memory of that awful smell might stay with her forever, but she was the queen."

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Book Friends

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly event hosted by The Broke and the Bookish where we make lists about books and bookish things.

This week's topic is Top Ten Characters Who X (fill in the blank) I'm going to do top ten characters I wish I were friends with (since this week has been all about friends for me!)

1. Zuzana (Daughter of Smoke and Bone) She is adorable and feisty and I feel like we'd get along great.

2. Kaylee (Soul Screamers) only because I want to be her.

3. Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games) I'd never have to be scared because she'd have my back. And I feel like I could get a smile out of her.

4. Veronica Mars (Veronica Mars and the Thousand Dollar Tan Line) Because who wouldn't want to hang with Ronnie?

5.  Sophie (Hex Hall) Everything about her. I love her.

6. Cath (Fangirl) We could just read all day and Levi would bring us coffee, yes? Yes.

7. Annabeth (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) I could certainly learn a thing or two from Annabeth, and maybe she'd lend me her hat every once in awhile.

8. Lola (Lola and the Boy Next Door) She could make me outfits, I could help her pick out wigs! I would have so much fun raiding her closet!

9. Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles) I want all the ladies in this book to go out for a drink with me, but Scarlet is my soul sister.

10. Becky (Confessions of a Shopaholic) Need I say more? Let's go shopping!


What's your Top Ten Tuesday and which girls would you love to be BFFs with?

Top Ten Tuesday: Best Sequels Ever

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the wonderful girls at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week there's a new topic to go gaga over.

This week's topic is: Top Ten Best Sequels Ever. Some books have second book syndrome, but these one blew it out of the park

1. Catching Fire (The Hunger Games) by Suzanne Collins: I for one loved this book! In fact, I liked it more than Mockingjay. Going back into the arena gave me more of what I loved from the first and the Katniss/Peeta love was swoon worthy.

2. Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles) by Marissa Meyer: Cinder blew me away and I wasn't sure if Scarlet would live up to it, but it exceeded my expectations. I loved Scarlet and Wolf and I love how it tied in with the first book. This is going to be a series to remember.

3. Through the Ever Night (Under the Never Sky) by Veronica Rossi: This is a dystopian worth mentioning. The characters are wonderful and the storyline is new and different. This sequel took everything we knew about the first book and stepped it up a notch. 

4. Lola and the Boy Next Door (Anna and the French Kiss) by Stephanie Perkins: Not sure if this entirely counts since it's a new set of characters, but Perkins writes teenagers so well and this book was everything the first book was and more. 

 

5. It's Not Summer Without You (The Summer I Turned Pretty) by Jenny Han: Ugh, what can I say about this series? Every book was perfection and I would love to read more about Belly's summers and boys. Heartbreaking and so real, Han has captured the essence of summer and this may have been the only love triangle I actually liked.

6. The Evolution of Mara Dyer (The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer) by Michelle Hodkin: The first book made me ask a lot of questions and this book just gave me more. Now, this is not a bad thing at all, in fact it's tangling the story up so much that I know by the time I read the final book, I'll be blown away by all the clues hidden throughout the books. Amazing series so far!

7. Where She Went (If I Stay) by Gayle Forman: This book broke my heart.As if the first book wasn't bad enough, Forman dug that knife deeper. It was great seeing the story told from Adam's point of view and it answered so many questions. Beautiful and heartbreaking.

8. Insurgent (Divergent) by Veronica Roth: Some people may not have liked this book, but it was perfect to me. There was a lot of character development and the post traumatic stress was the perfect addition to the series. Oh and that ending? Let's not forget that!

 

9. Shift (Shade) by Jeri Smith-Ready: This was another great series. Aura and Zach are the cutest couple ever and each book took an important step in the story. It was perfection, all of them.

10. The Dead Tossed Waves (The Forest of Hands and Teeth) by Carrie Ryan: I liked the second and third book better than the first only because it was more relatable. All three are so different but they tie together nicely and they were all equally scary. Still one of the bet zombie series I've read. 

Review: Scarlet

Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles #2)
Author: Marissa Meyer
Published: February 5, 2013
Hardcover, 452 pages
5 Gold Stars

(summary from Goodreads)

Cinder, the cyborg mechanic, returns in the second thrilling installment of the bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She's trying to break out of prison—even though if she succeeds, she'll be the Commonwealth's most wanted fugitive.

Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit's grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn't know about her grandmother or the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother's whereabouts, she is loath to trust this stranger, but is inexplicably drawn to him, and he to her. As Scarlet and Wolf unravel one mystery, they encounter another when they meet Cinder. Now, all of them must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen Levana, who will do anything for the handsome Prince Kai to become her husband, her king, her prisoner.

The Lunar Chronicles continue in this second instalment, following a new fairy tale character, Scarlet, as she searches for her grandmother. It starts with a bang and never silences. Early in the book, Scarlet meets Wolf, a mysterious street fighter who's willing to help her look for her grandmother. But the longer she looks, the more information she realizes her grandma was hiding from her, and the closer she gets to Wolf, the more dangerous he becomes. While Scarlet is on her own search, Cinder has escaped from prison and is on her own mission, eager to stop the war that is destined to happen all because of her. The chapters coordinate so flawlessly, it's hard to believe this book follows so many different story lines. 

It's hard to tell that these two books focus on two totally different fairy tales. Meyer blends them together so seamlessly, that it's like she's created everything about these characters and stories herself. Adding in the futuristic universe, plague, and a whole other planet, creates a completely new fairy tale that stands on its own. I liked finding the small references to Little Red Riding Hood throughout the novel, from Scarlet's red hoodie to a wolf impersonating her grandmother. There were more twists in this book than in Cinder, leaving me wondering more than a few times about how it would end. Meyer added Scarlet as a main character perfectly, making it seem like she's been in the story all along and having her encounter Cinder in the best way possible. I can't wait to see how she'll add the other two girls, Cress and Winter, into the tale.

I knew I would love Scarlet the minute I met her. She has the same fierceness that Cinder embodies, both girls ready to fight for what they love. Scarlet is fiery and carries a gun. She's not afraid of what she amy encounter along her journey, except maybe her feelings for Wolf. These two have fire between them. I loved Cinder and Prince Kai, but what they were missing Scarlet and Wolf make up for threefold. Fans who read The Queen's Army will recognize Wolf, which just adds to the tension. I found myself way more interested in Scarlet's story than Cinder's, but I was very happy when they came together. Cinder's new partner, Captain Thorne, was hilarious and charming and I liked what he added to the story. 

Fairytale re-tellings always grab my attention. I like that authors can take well known stories and turn them into something completely different. Meyer has done a great job so far keeping the fairytale practically separate from her writing. It's wonderful that she's created a whole new world but the meaning behind the fairytales is still there and prominent. This is hard thing to do and she has managed to do it perfectly. The ending has left me eager for more and her writing has let me wanting to improve mine. Normally I'm not a fan of third person, but these books just wouldn't be the same if they weren't written that way. Beautiful modern fairytales for a modern world. Because princesses kick ass now, didn't you know that?

“Little Red was a tender young morsel, and the wolf knew she would be even tastier than the old woman.”