Hello all, and apologies for not posting in a while. It has been a crazy week. I finally figured out how to write this chapter I’ve been stuck on, and I’ve been making great progress with that. Which is to say yes, the entire chapter is still an infodump but at least I now have something on the page that I can work with to make less infodumpy, and that’s progress. I also took the Massachusetts Law Component of the bar and passed on my first attempt, so yay! Oh, and I’m moving in less than two weeks and I officially hate Ikea, particularly their online ordering system on tax free weekend (spoiler alert, it doesn’t work).
So here I am at past 11:00 PM, and it’s almost too late for me to be articulate, but I’m going to chat with you all about Winter, the fourth book of the Lunar Chronicles series, which was the last book I read in June.
I actually fully expected not to finish this book in June (studying for the bar and everything), but I was feeling pretty sick on the last weekend of June, so I gave up on studying and just spent the day in bed listening to Winter. And when you listen to all audiobooks at 1.5 speed as I do, you can make a lot of progress in one day. So I finished Winter in June.
As usual, this review will be spoiler free for Winter, but there will be spoilers for Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress. If you haven’t read any of those books, go check out my spoiler-free reviews: Cinder is here, Scarlet is here, and Cress is here.
Like the first three books of the series, Winter is a retold fairy tale. Winter is Snow White. Princess Winter is Lunar Queen Levana’s stepdaughter, incredibly pretty, and pretty crazy too. She refuses to use her Gift, so she has lunar sickness. Her only friends in the world are the guard Jacen (who teamed up with Cinder and co in Cress and then betrayed them to get back to Luna and Winter), and now maybe Scarlet (though Scarlet is more of a prisoner than a friend). And while Scarlet is stuck in a cage in the royal menagerie, and Winter is playing Levana’s political games and trying to protect Jacen and herself from Levana’s wrath, Cinder, Iko, Thorne, Wolf, Cress, and Kai are plotting a revolution. I don’t want to say much more than that, but as we’ve gotten to know what makes Levana tick and Winter’s story is based on Snow White, you can probably guess where things are headed (hint: Jacen is the huntsman and Cinder and co may be the dwarves.
This book is a ton of fun. It’s fast-paced and action packed from start to finish, and it does a really good job of wrapping up the series. All the characters have such epic moments. I really love watching Scarlet and Winter’s friendship grow over this book, and I love the contrast between how Scarlet treats Winter and how Jacen treats Winter. I also love Winter’s arc and how she goes from crazy but timid to crazy but powerful. And of course Cinder, Cress, Thorne, Kai, Wolf, and Iko are all wonderful as well.
I will say that this book suffers a bit from being the last book in the series and needing to tie everything off. There’s a lot to pack in, and it’s great, but we also have ten point of view characters now, and they’re spread all over the moon at times. It means that Winter’s story is overshadowed by the rest of the plot in a way that Cinder’s Scarlet’s and Cress’s stories were not in the previous books. Winter’s story is great, don’t get me wrong. It just doesn’t have the ability to shine the way the others’ stories did, because there’s so much going on.
Also I just have to say it: I was sad that Thorne gets his sight back. This isn’t a complaint about a disability being magically or scientifically cured as if it didn’t exist or anything. In terms of disability representation and the plot of the book, I have no problems with Thorne getting his sight back. His awesome character development is still there, and yay science and everything, but he was such a great blind character and I was sorry to lose that in this book.
I’ve read a lot of criticisms about the ending of this book, which is also the ending of the series. Without any spoilers, they boil down to a complaint that it’s unrealistic, but honestly I don’t mind it. It’s the ending I wanted, and honestly the ending I would have written if this were my book. Reminder, it’s a retold fairy tale. Actually, four retold fairy tales. A little unrealistic is okay. I also don’t mind the decision Cinder makes in the end, because I think it fits with her character, and it’s not like she’s going to do it all at once or even right away.
I’m not saying this book is perfect, because Cress is perfect and Winter certainly has some flaws. But this is also one of those series that I get really frustrated when people nitpick it because I love it so much and why can’t people just like things anymore?
Anyway, I don’t want to say more about the ending because this is a spoiler-free review. I’m happy to talk more about the ending in the comments if you want, just please remember to tag any spoilers to protect anyone who hasn’t read Winter yet.
The last time I reread this series (during the fall of my first year of law school, I think), I said that this is one of those series where each book is better than the last. I think it still says that on my goodreads reviews for these books. I think I’d amend that opinion now though. The series certainly gets better and better as you read on. I love all the characters, and I love getting new characters with each book. It’s a format I was uncertain about when I started Scarlet, but Marissa Meyer pulls it off really well. I also love how all the books connect, and we see different characters in different roles throughout the series (like how Cress is kind of the fairy godmother in Cinder’s story and Cinder is one of the dwarfs in Winter’s story). I love the world building, particularly the disability representation I talked mostly about in my review of Cress, and in general these books make me so happy.
But I wouldn’t say that each book is better than the last. I think Scarlet suffers from sticking a little too closely to the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale, which takes a lot of suspense away for the reader. And I think Winter suffers from being the last book in the series and trying to cram so much into one book. Cress is probably my favorite, followed by Cinder, then Winter, then Scarlet.
But they are all fantastic books, and I love them all. The Lunar Chronicles is one of those series that I reach the end of and just want to turn around and start again at the beginning. It was a really great series to reread while studying for the bar, because it really did take me to a whole new world.
I’m really curious what you think of Winter and the series as a whole, so let’s chat in the comments.
And that’s it for the books I read in June. Woot! I’ll be back tomorrow with a quick reading roundup post, and then it’s on to July.