Review: Winter

Winter (The Lunar Chronicles #4)
by Marissa Meyer
YA Science Fiction
Amazon  /  Goodreads

Plot Summary:

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?

Review:

This is such a massive story, but there were a lot of dramas and character arcs the author had to wrap up.  And overall, this was a beautifully told and completely satisfying conclusion to a fantastic science fiction series.

Even though the story is called Winter, all the characters are equally important to the story.  But because of the title, I'll start talking about Winter and her storyline.  As always, I loved how Marissa Meyer integrated the Snow White fairy tale with Winter's story, and all the little references made me smile.  Winter is unique in this series because she's so damaged and fragile, yet she has an inner strength that was beautiful to see.  I'm not sure how I feel about her romance with Jacin though.  It seems a little superficial, even though they have been through a lot.  It's very sweet though, and Jacin is a wonderful character to get to know.  His devotion to Winter is heart-warming, and he's smart and tough.  Even if I wasn't completely sold on their connection, I liked them together - especially because Winter was so cute around him.

Scarlet was a character, I kind of overlooked in the past - I really liked her, but I was more interested in Cinder and Cress, but in this book, I loved how Scarlet took charge and how strong and resilient and fiery she was in some very trying circumstances.  She became a very admirable character in this book, and I'm happy that she came into her own more.  Her romance with Wolf is another romance I'm a bit iffy on, but it's wonderful how much of a connection she has with him, and how devoted they are to each other.  I couldn't help feeling all the love!

Kai came out a much stronger and admirable character in this book as well.  He has to make tough decisions and seeing his interactions with Levana showed how strong of a leader he was.  It's too bad he was mostly powerless, but when he could act, it was very satisfying how quickly he made the right decisions.  Cinder and Kai seem like a perfect pair, and I think of all the romances in this series and seeing how they developed, I love theirs the most.  There is something so beautiful about how they look out for each other while also being true to their duties to their people.

Cress and Thorne though take the award for most adorable.  I just love them together and it was sweet, if prolonged, how unsure they were about each other's feelings.  Thorne is always the most entertaining character too, so I thoroughly enjoyed their interactions.

I have mostly talked about the romances of the characters in this story, but the plot is so important in this book.  There's so much going on - so many threads that it was a struggle to read this book because I wanted to know what would happen immediately.  Consequently I felt like the story dragged a little, and the pacing was sometimes slow, but I'm not sure if that was just because of my impatience.  I think the author did a tremendous job of fleshing out every character and concluding their arc though, while also maintaining believably how difficult it would be for the characters to wrest control away from Levana.  Levana was a true "nut-basket" too, and after reading the prequel novella about Levana's story it was fascinating to see and understand just how out of control she had become while Queen.  Even though I had some sympathy with her after reading about her story in the novella, I was all about seeing her defeated in this book.

The consequences of all the characters' actions felt real, and the characters had fitting endings which made this a satisfying read.  It had a lot of drama and suspense as well, which kept me engaged, and very impatient to get to the end.  I'm sorry that the Lunar Chronicles series is over, but I'm happy for how it ended.