I can't believe we're fresh out of highschool and you gave me homework and a Monday deadline. Ah well, I suppose it'll be like that when I'm a journalist hey? Today I finished The Lunar Chronicles series with its epic finale - Winter by Marissa Meyer.

Lunches, chores and social life were sacrificed from 11am to 6pm as I raced through this book, which was released very recently. You may be wondering if I'm crazy but nope, this book was totally worth it and I don't know if you've read this series so lets pretend you haven't.

The Lunar Chronicles is a fantasy slash sci-fi series by Marissa Meyer, a former fanfiction author who wrote THE BEST fanfiction for Sailor Moon (ask me for the link if you're interested, haha). It is a futuristic retelling of classic fairytales following the story of Linh Cinder, a teenage cyborg mechanic, who is suddenly thrust into political conflict between Earth and the moon's civilisation, Luna, when charming Prince Kai (*swoons*) approaches her to fix his silly old android.

The main fairytales that are followed in each book are as follows:

• Cinder - Cinderella (Cinder & Kai)
• Scarlet - Little Red Riding Hood (Scarlet & Wolf)
• Cress - Rapunzel (Cress & Thorne)
• Winter - Snow White (Winter & Jacin)

Winter was a total let down in comparison to its predecessors, but it was NOT bad. There were so many theories and speculations I had that were unanswered, e.g. Torin (Kai's advisor) perhaps being Cinder's real father, what would actually happen to Levana, Cinder learning more about her mother etc. It was a whole giant mess but a mess I loved nevertheless.

I can't spoil much for you but I will try to explain my opinions.

I love that you get immersed into different worlds easily. Its unfamiliar territory to us because the depicted future is so different, but you get to this level of understanding the culture from their fashion, their mannerisms and their politics.

In this book, much of the focus was on a rebellion in Luna of Cinder and her crew against the crazy Queen Levana. It was kind of silly one, if you asked me, because everything felt so wish-wosh. In The Hunger Games, you really feel the tension and everything that is at risk. Because there were significant "commoners" that the characters interacted with as characters and not just as "oh hey you're there cool" like Rue.

For some reason, Meyer failed to deliver on the close connection the rebellion had for its citizens. I mean she had Maha Kelsey, one of the mothers of the eight main characters, and the guard Liam Kinney (I LOVE HIM SO MUCH) but I still felt no tension. It was so rushed, unrealistic, a walking dream. It was more of a "OMG WHAT HAPPENS NEXT" rather than "IM ON THE EDGE OF MYSEAT PISSING MYSELF BC MY ABABIES WILL GET HURT". Maybe its because these books are fairytale and fairytales have happily ever afters.

Anyway, most of the characters were established in the earlier books so you feel the brunt of their individual traits then. Sun, you will fall heads over heeeeels for the men in this book, I'm telling ya. Kai is the sweet diplomatic, ever so responsible teasing one. Thorne is basically your Will Herondale except no books and more stealing and crime. He's a total flirt. Wolf is that baddie-with-a-past yet somehow adorable once in love that you seem to inherently get drawn to. Even Jacin, who I found annoying with his shallow, ridiculous tunnel vision of 'I will protect my princess Winter and I only care about her and no one else', you will probably swoon at because of his unbreakable loyalty to his girlfriend.

And the girls in here are badass. Not in the tough way, but in the way that they are able to grow as people with or without their boys. In this book, characters aren't a "here's what you have to be like" but a "you have these traits that will make you react certain ways, but you are going to learn what its like to be a real person" if you feel me. It wasn't cookie-cutter 2D characters - these girls have depth and complexity.

I hate that I can't spoil anything (although I will, a lot, when I revamp this review for Goodreads) but the ending scene of this story... Oh god, I want to cry.

Cinder grew up without love and without friends. She was adopted when she was 13 into a household that hated her because she was cyborg and had only her android, Iko, and now-dead sister Peony for company. When you think about this and read the ending of Winter, I guarantee you will bawl.

To summarise, I give it a ★★★★☆ rating because...
+ fairytale
+ my bias for this series and this author
+ AMAZING characters
+ AMAZING world where its cultures and context are explored subtly throughout
+ somehow making me laugh despite the seriousness of the book
+ exploration of real world issues that parallel things in this book (e.g. dictatorships, terrorism, racism)
- too happily ever after-y (I'm too used to realistic ending books, I can't handle fairytale endings no more)
- poor execution of the rebellion


Well, hope you were able to get something out of this letter. I'm still reeling from the emotional aftermaths of reading Winter and am upset at having unanswered questions to theories, so I'm not writing well. Sorry!