Cress by Marissa Meyer is the third in the Lunar Chronicles. If you haven’t heard of this series, be sure to check out my reviews of the first book, Cinder, and the second book, Scarlet, because this series is freaking fantabulous! I felt that Scarlet was even better than Cinder, and Cress does not disappoint this trend. While Cress was a slightly different book than the first two, it made my brain feel all warm and fuzzy every time I sat down to read. We meet new characters and get to know old ones better, there is epicness on so many levels, and I am EVEN MORE excited about the fourth book, Winter, than I was before! Also, be sure to check the end of the review for the giveaway of… ALL THREE CURRENT BOOKS SIGNED AND PERSONALIZED to you!

Note: A friend gave me an ARC of Cress to review. Some things may change in the final version.

Cress by Marissa Meyer (Lunar Chronicles #3)
Published by Feiwel & Friends on February 4th, 2014
Genres: Fairytale Retelling, Sci-fi, YA
Length: 560 pages
How I got my copy: Borrowed
IndieBound - Book Depository - Goodreads
Purchases made support this blog

Rapunzel’s tower is a satellite. She can’t let down her hair—or her guard.

In this third book in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles series, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army.

Their best hope lies with Cress, who has been trapped on a satellite since childhood with only her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker—unfortunately, she’s just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice.

When a daring rescue goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing stop her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only ones who can.

Strengths:

I feel that I must start with the title character: Cress! *squeals* I love her so much! I imagine that many of us are going to have Tangled flashbacks while reading Cress but I honestly think it totally works. Cinder and Scarlet are both kick-butt heroines, but Cress brings something new to the table. She has obviously led a pretty sheltered life with a skewed perspective on things (mostly from watching net dramas….) and Meyer captures this wonderfully. Cress is a brilliant hacker but also adorably naive about a lot of things. She is a perfect edition to our fairy tale cast specifically because she isn’t the typical kick-butt heroine who is too tough to cry!
Omg ya’ll, the twists! You know I love a good plot twist and I consider Cress to have more than one. They were the great kind, too, where they are kinda stressful because you know the characters’ lives are going to get more difficult, but also make perfect sense, but also just make you have to know what is going to happen! My pulse is rising just thinking about them >.>.
The feels, wow, the feels. Scarlet definitely destroyed my emotions, but Cress doesn’t pull any punches. They are made all the worse because you kind of know something has to happen, but it’s still so freaking emotional. There aren’t just sad feels though! Thorne and Cress had me squeeing and literally laughing out loud quite often ;-).
I love clever epic battles! You know when the hero saves the day against impossible odds not through luck or magically discovering some deep inner power but through being so dang clever?? That! That is awesome and that is what you get in Cress.
We get little torturous hints about the character Winter and I am so freaking excited! Even though this is Cress, I am already impressed with how multi-faceted Winter the character is going to be, not to mention the epicness of Winter the book’s plot….
Iko gets a couple of chapters from her perspective <3!

Weaknesses:

There are three couples now for those playing along at home and that is two more than most stories that we are used to have. All of the characters work great (yey epic fantasy adventuring party!), but each of the romance pairings being so neat and tidy is a little annoying. I want a single fairy-tale princess, who needs boys?!
Cress melted my heart, but I didn’t get the white-knuckle, edge-of-your-seat feel that I had with Scarlet. I hit a point with Scarlet where I was literally getting white knuckles gripping the hardcover, and that just didn’t happen with Cress (which is probably good since it was a rather floppy ARC). I have very high hopes for Winter though ;-).

Summary:

Really, at this point, you probably already know if you are going to read Cress or not. If you loved Scarlet, you will love Cress and I’m so excited and a little jealous that you get to read it for the first time still :D. If you read Cinder and were only meh and not sure about continuing the series, continue the series! I cannot emphasize enough how much each book’s writing has grown and I love it. I’m very impressed by how skillfully Meyer has weaved together three (four in the end) fairytale retellings, keeping each of the couples involved in the overarching storyline, and building this amazing sci-fi world to boot. Amaze-balls if you ask me.

Signed and Personalized Copies of All Three Books!

That’s right folks! I’m super excited to let you know that Marissa Meyer will be stopping in my town for her tour in February and so in addition to getting some signed copies for myself, I’ll be getting personally signed copies for one of you! Since you of course want a nice matching set, I’ll be giving away Cinder, Scarlet and Cress all signed and personalized :D.

Signed Cress Giveaway

Gah, I’m just so freaking excited that Marissa Meyer is touring *hyperventilates*. I’m okay! Let’s get this giveaway started! This is going to have to be US only since shipping three books will be expensive. As usual, the winner will have 48 hours to respond (strictly enforced since I need a name for the signing!). Please don’t cheat since I check entries and it sucks having to pick a new one.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck!