Cress #3 | Marissa Meyer

this is a very old photo i took like in april or something like that

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This is the third book in the Lunar Chronicle series by Marissa Meyer and I know I've never reviewed a book by her on my blog and that's because I read the first two books: Cinder and Scarlet before I made this blog, however I do have a review (more like me trying to review) of Scarlet on my goodreads and I'll link it here. In order to understand the premiss of the series and this review if you haven't read the first two books, I think you should look at the goodreads pages I've linked above as you can then read the synopsis of the each book, even though this is a spoiler free review....it is the third book....and you have been warned. 

Seriously though, get on this series if you haven't already, these books get better as you read on and get more invested in the series and characters. Marissa Meyer is a phenomenal writer! I have no idea why it took me so long to finally get to this as I finished Cinder and Scarlet around the first couple of months of 2014 and I waited this long to read this book...I have no idea why. Like this was amazing, what is wrong with me. Winter (the fourth instalment of this series) might just be my most anticipated book of 2015, as of right now. 

Nevertheless, the books I have read from Marissa Meyer have been fantastic and I've given them all 5/5 stars because -omg-she-is-amazing-and-her-books-are-like-also-amazing-and-I-love-her-!!!-. 

The Lunar Chronicle's is a Young Adult, Fantasy series. Don't be frightened by the fantasy as it's no Game of Thrones or Throne of Glass but it's very well built and put together. I would definitely recommend this series to people who are just starting to get into fantasy or if you just want a good fantasy read.  

I will paste the goodreads synopsis of Cress here for people who have the read the first two books or for anyone curious, although if you have not yet started on this series, go look at the Cinder synopsis (these books are phenomenal!)

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.

These book are renditions of fairytales, for example the first book: Cinder is about Cinderella who is half cyborg. I don't know if that intrigues you or if you're running away right not but damn son I was hitting that up! 

The Lunar Chronicle's consist of (in order from first to last):

Cinder #1
Scarlet #2
Cress #3
Winter #4 (yet to be released)

As I mentioned before they are sorta, kinda like fairytale retellings but not exactly. You would have to read them to understand as Cinder is Cinderella who is half human half cyborg, Scarlet is Little Red Riding Hood, Cress is Rapunzel and Winter is Snow White. 

There are many things I love about this series but one thing I adore the most is how memorable these characters are and how relatable they can me. These books get better and better as they continue with another instalment and it's absolutely fantastic; each book has a new 'main' character, for example in Cinder, Cinder was the main character. In Scarlet, Scarlet was the main character, however in Scarlet, Cinder was still present and is still incorporated. Once we get to Cress...Cress is the main character along with Cinder and Scarlet and everyone they have met and it just becomes epic! They are like companion novel to each other but not like the Anna and the French Kiss books where the other characters make 'book cameos'. In the Lunar Chronicles everyone you meet becomes a large part of the book and follows all the main characters in third person. I seriously hope this makes sense.

I feel as though this book was so far the best. Like I said above the books get better as you read on and I can only imagine how awesome Winter will be when it comes out. Out of the three protagonist we have had the pleasure of meeting, I've related so much with Cress and it was quite emotional as she was basically me...in a book. I mean I'm no pro at hacking and I haven't been prisoner in a satellite but her personality and the way her mind works is much to mine and that made it so much more emotional because when she was upset I was upset. It was an emotional roller coaster.

Here is a tweet I remember tweeting yesterday when I was extremely sleep deprived and practically drooling on the book:

Oh yeah...how rude of me, now you can follow me on twitter @fionajadex you won't regret it *winks*. 

I believe that there are a couple of novellas in between these books, the one I'm most familiar with is Fairest (coming out around the beginning of 2015 I believe) which is a prequel follows the backstory of the 'evil' Queen Levana (which I believe is the Evil Queen in Snow White). Not to mention all these covers are breathtaking! 

Across The Universe | Beth Revis

☆☆☆☆

Oh thank god we finally get a proper y/a sci-fi where romance doesn't depict the whole book! 

'A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.' 

Across The Universe in my opinion is a very unique young-adult-sci-fi novel where sixteen year old Amy joins her parents on board a spaceship 'godspeed' to theoretically be frozen and awaken at a new planet three hundred years later in the future. However she unfortunately gets awaken fifty years too early. Amy then realises that she didn't 'accidentally' wake up from some computer malfunction but because some is out to kill her and possibly her parents and the other frozen cargo. She then has to discover the secrets of the this spaceship and meeting the inhabitants. She befriends Elder and Harley in the process of figuring out who awakened her. 

Can we talk about how I don't actually have the beautiful hardcover edition of this book *sighs* I have the boring space-n-star-less edition. God damn publishing companies, damnnnn. If you have the hardcover edition I am super jealous of you.

                        My favourite part:

She starts crying. Not soft, sad tears, but the angry sort like she hates the whole world or at least the ship that's now her world . So I do what any reasonable person would do when faced with a crying girl.

I get the frex out of there.

This honestly was a well written y/a sci-fi novel. There was so much action (passive action?) that I literally sped through the book. The idea and plot line for this novel was greatly thought out; the characters were brilliant, however Amy one of the mains was slightly annoying for me. This is another great and I mean GREAT representation of a y/a book where the romance isn't the only 'hot topic' but there was a solid plot and grounded characters, yes there was romance but it was kept to a minimal (which makes it far more realistic!) probably because this is a trilogy. The book may sound confusing to most people I can relate because I basically don't read books that have strong themes of sci-fi, apocalyptic, paranormal and aliens, no no noo. However Beth Revis writes this brilliantly with the duel perspectives and the whole book is just so damn intriguing. I'm very please to hear that this isn't then end for these characters and this world because I'm starting to really, really love it. 

The only thing I struggled with was the lingo or the 'space language', if you will. I understand that this was all for effect and it just helped the world building and the personality and dialogue between the characters, for example a few words: chutz, stars, frexing (my personal favourite) etc. I am in no means saying that this was pointless, its quite the opposite where I totally understand why this 'lingo' was used, this was just a mere observation a took down what I was reading. I also got very confused with the ship godspeed and how it was laid out and where everything was but not to fret there is a map/diagram insert in the book. 

All in all I highly recommend if you like sci-fi and if you don't want something where romance takes it all up, however even if you love romance I still think you should pick it up because what romance there is it's very cute and ship/otp worthy. Spoilery section bellow. 

~fi

  x

Around the second third of the book I did have a theory that the whole Eldest/Elder thing had something to do with all these killings; that the Elder between Eldest and present Elder was still alive and thats why he was able to get access into the cargo and stuff. I was right so HA! I was deffinely onto something along the lines of the dead Elder was still alive. I'm wasn't that fond of Harley or Amy, Harley was just sorta third-wheeling for me but I did start to like him more as the book progressed and then......he died......wow. Amy was always sorta annoying I mean Elder would call her 'beautiful' and hold her hand and she totally ignonred him, like GIRl I understand you're a little shook up but don't be a rude meanhead. I never truly liked Eldest either so when he died I was all for it, I was holy-mofo shocked when we learn there was no plague with disease but more of a protest/riot. Neither did I suspect Orion of anything but lmao right, shocker. The damn phydus though.