Winter Review

First of all, happy Christmas to everyone that celebrated it, hope you had a good one.

I’ve been saving Winter until I could give it my full attention (aka when I’d have time to read it in one sitting) and now I’ve finally finished this series! Yay!!

Okay, so onto the review! The first admission I have to make is Cress is still my favourite of the series. Because while this did have a lot of very satisfying moments and some really cute scenes, it didn’t get my heart pounding as much as I would have liked.

That was partly because a lot of the plot was all over the place. A lot of the time, it just felt like she was trying to cram too much into the story. Other times, Meyer gave too much space to things that seemed like they were going to be important, and then turned out to only be something minor that would be used to tie up loose ends later. But mostly, it was just really repetitive. Basically, a lot of the conflict revolved around someone getting captured, then escaping, then someone else getting captured. And that got old really fast. And made it feel a lot less tense.

Not only was the action all over the place, but many of the sub plots seemed a little bit pointless and insignificant- often because they’d already come up in the previous books. What I liked in others of the series was how the titular character had centre stage in their own book, which Meyer balanced perfectly with the stories of characters from previous books. In this one, however, I felt like Winter’s story was really upstaged by other character’s storylines. While it makes sense that there would be more focus on other characters, considering how this was the finale, I felt like a lot of this was unnecessary padding.

Mostly, this could have been solved with a more streamlined plot. But I also felt that, in terms of Winter’s story, there was a lot to be desired. Honestly, Jacin’s character felt a little flat for me, so I didn’t feel invested in their relationship. Nor did I connect as much as I would have liked with Winter. I also felt that it would have been interesting to see more interactions between Levana and Winter. While Levana’s motivations became clearer at the end of the book, a lot of the time her jealousy seemed a bit random and irrational. Especially considering how pathetic Winter often seemed.

On the other hand, I did enjoy how Meyer explored the idea of monstrosity (which is a huge theme in fairy tales in general). While she didn’t go into it in a huge way, she did delve into Levana’s perspective, which gave the whole series a bit more depth. So kudos for that.

Overall, I think it could have been better in many ways, but it was a decent ending. And for all my griping about it, I was largely satisfied with how it turned out and did enjoy a lot of it. It’s still a fun ending to a fun series 🙂

Rating: 3 ½ /5 bananas

  

(Admittedly, I’m giving it an extra half a banana because two of my favourite characters got the exact happy ending I wanted.)

Have you been reading the Lunar Chronicles? Were you happy with the way Winter turned out? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below!