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This is my favorite in the Lunar Chronicles so far! 5 stars! This review will contain no spoilers for Cress, but if you have not read the first two books, there will be spoilers for Cinder and Scarlet.
Summary:
Cress is the third installment of the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer and holy moly it’s the BEST one (so far, I haven’t read Winter yet). So remember that one girl from book one who warned Cinder about Queen Levana’s plan to kill Prince Kai once she’s married to him? Well she comes back in this book. Cress has been imprisoned on a satellite for I believe 7 years. She’s Luna’s greatest hacker and Levana and Mistress Sybil have given her her next task: track down Cinder and her crew. Little does Levana know that Cress is on Cinder’s side and has been hiding her this whole time. Cinder manages to get a hold of Cress and they attempt to rescue her, but I’m sure you already know things do not go as smoothly as we wished.
The story takes off from there, but really the story takes off from page one because you get sucked in right from the beginning! This book felt like that book where we finally get to know everything we’ve been wanting to know from the beginning. This book was ALL SUSPENSE with SO MUCH ACTION, and plot twists, and mind control, and even a little bit of a heist vibe towards the end. There were many moments when I was reading where I just went… Wait, what?! Did that just happen?! Is this forreal? And it was awesome. I loved everything about this book. The romance, even though it wasn’t a main focus, was extremely cutesy too. OH, and the ending! It was absolutely satisfying! Still a cliffhanger because we have book four, but very very very worth the wait of 550 pages. I ship Prince Kai and Cinder so much right now.
*Also, I read this book using Audible! The narrator for this series, Rebecca Soler, is PERFECT when she's doing all the different voices and she adds the right kind of emotion to her narrating!
Plot:
Like I said above, I was literally in a state of suspense for this ENTIRE book. There was always something I was waiting for to happen, whether that be something good like revealing a huge mystery or bad like someone was about to get into a fight. It was all crazy. Another book that just sends your emotions into a frenzy!
This plot just got so much more complex in Cress. Everything you know about Levana and how she wants to take over Earth, there’s more to it. Cinder has a plan to take back her throne, oh it just got so much more complicated. You thought the crew already had a lot of people, well not we’re adding another three people (kinda)! Just SO MUCH HAPPENS.
And then besides the BIG obstacles that are encountered within the first couple chapters of trying to rescue Cress, there are all these small problems that they have to solve along the way. And there are so many action scenes. Way way more than the other two book and they make this book even more fast paced. The battle scenes definitely have you at the edge of your seat praying that your babies don’t die!
Also, can we just talk about Kai for a second. He’s still all alone in the EC with only his government for company. Poor Kai. He’s so stressed out and STILL has no idea what’s going on with Cinder. You can definitely tell he still has feeling for her and it’s so sad when he’s trying to convince himself that she’s a criminal.
Another romantic subplot that was super adorable is Thorne and Cress. You know Cress is basically in love with Throne from the beginning, but we know Thorne to be this arrogant rude man (but really he’s super sweet). We get to see him change so much and face probably the worst trials in this book. He got it pretty bad in this one.
Characters:
Cinder is still my favorite of all the girl characters. She’s the one who came up with the master plan to overthrow Levana (wait for the better plan, because there’s a better one) and it’s so brilliant! She’s also the leader of this entire crew of misfits and she holds it together so well. Cinder is starting to master her powers more in this book with Wolf’s help and as you see her grow stronger and stronger, this book gets more and more exciting. Like what amazing feat will she be able to pull of next! One thing I didn’t understand is why she didn’t want to tell more people that she was Princess Selene? If she plans to announce it, then why does it matter if a few people know early?
Prince Kai is yum. So is Thorne. Prince Kai makes the ending of Cress 100x better. I was just so happy for Kai at the end. All the other times, it’s sad because he’s all alone in the EC.
Thorne and Cress! They are SO CUTE. She’s this innocent little girl that just cannot do any wrong, but she grows a backbone in this book. Thorne I think helps her grow and Cress definitely helps him grow. We get to see more of his heroic side if I may. And Cress turns into a badass towards the end of the book! She’s so cool because of her hacker skills.
Scarlet and Wolf aren't in the book too much. They kinda got the short end of the stick. I felt super bad for them in this book, but that’s all I can say on that without spoilers. And Wolf… Well, it’s very unfortunate for everyone that he’s such a good killer.
Overall:
This book was so so so great! I think my favorite thing about this book besides the suspense and action was the multiple points of views. I just really love multiple POV books and Cress is a great example of one with like 4+ views. We get so much information and emotion out of each character. I do wish there were more Thorne POV’s though. Cinder and Prince Kai are still my #1 ship in this series followed by Cress and Thorne, then Scarlet and Wolf. Can’t wait to see what happens in the book!
Thank you for reading! :)