Cress by Marissa Meyer

Hey everyone,

I started reading The Lunar Chronicles in 2015 after renting Cinder from my local library. I’d seen so many people raving about this Young Adult series on Tumblr that I became intrigued. I devoured Cinder in one night, quickly followed by Scarlet and towards the end of last year I found the time to read Cress...

The book:

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

Their best hope lies with Cress, a girl imprisoned on a satellite since childhood who's only ever had 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 of Cress goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing prevent her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only hope the world has.

My thoughts:

Cress focused on two of my favourite characters from the previous novels Cress and Thorne. I was immediately drawn to the character of Cress who we only see glimpses of in Scarlet and now that I’ve finished the book I think her and Thorne are my favourite couple so far. I loved Cress for her child-like enthusiasm. Her belief in Thorne’s inherent goodness and also her bravery. Even before she meets Cinder, Thorne, Scarlet and Wolf she is willing to risk everything because it is the right thing to do.

Maybe there isn’t such a thing as fate. Maybe it’s just the opportunities we’re given, and what we do with them. I’m beginning to think that maybe great, epic romances don’t just happen. We have to make them ourselves.

For me Cress was the story with the most focus on the romance. I loved that Cress always saw the best in Thorne... And that she stalked him. Mainly I loved that she stalked him. After being imprisoned in a satellite for most of her life everything is new and exciting to Cress. Whereas Thorne is almost jaded by life. Before meeting Cinder and helping her it felt like he had given up on everyone. Only looking out for himself. I loved how Marissa Meyer brought Cress and Thorne closer together; slowly interweaving their romantic relationship with the wider plots happening in the series. The world-building as with the previous two books was brilliant and only added more layers and complexity to a fascinating world.

“An animal?” Thorne said, and she realized he'd been waiting for her to further explain what she was seeing.

“It has long legs and horns and... and it's beautiful.”

“Oh, good, we're back to this, then.”

Being a lover of romance books I really enjoyed when Marissa Meyer’s referenced the figure of the romantic hero when describing both Wolf and Thorne. Now without ruining the plot there are some fairly major developments for our other two couples (Cinder and Kai & Scarlet and Wolf) in Cress. Everything scene featuring Cinder or Kai simultaneously reminded the reader how little time they had spent together and how deeply they felt about each other. Yet this book wasn’t without hardship. After all Cinder and her gang are wanted by almost every known government in the universe.

Knees suddenly weak, she reached for his forearms to stabilize herself. “You came for me.”

He beamed, looking for all the world like a selfless, daring hero.

“Don’t sound so surprised.” Dropping the cane, he pulled her into a crushing embrace that tore her away from Wolf and lifted her clean off the floor.

As always Cress finished on a complete cliffhanger with just a spark of hope. Yet the beauty of starting a series when all the books are already released is I already own Winter and can start reading it straight away. I would honestly consider The Lunar Chronicles the best series I discovered in 2015 and can’t wait to start Winter.

My rating:

Happy reading and see you next time!