Review – Winter (The Lunar Chronicles, Book 4) by Marissa Meyer (5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Science Fiction
Length: 832 pages
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Release Date: November 10, 2015
ISBN-13: 978-0312642983
Stand Alone or Series: 4th book in the Lunar Chronicles
Source: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 5/5 stars

This is the fourth and final book in the Lunar Chronicles. I adored this book, in fact I have pretty much loved this whole series. This book is just perfect and made me so sad that the series is over.

Princess Winter is the somewhat disturbed stepdaughter of Queen Levana. She despises Queen Levana and is desperate to find a way to get the people of Lunar out from under Levana’s rule. Winter is doing what she can to help; she saved Scarlet’s life and is trying to find ways to help Cinder claim the Lunar throne. Can Winter, Scarlet, Cress, and Cinder do what is needed to save both the people of Lunar and Earth from Levana’s dastardly plans?

This book switches point of view a lot and goes between a number of characters. We hear from Winter, Scarlet, Cinder, Cress, Levana, Jacin, Wolf, Thorne, and Kai. This works beautifully for this book. Each of these characters is incredibly interesting and fun to read about. Meyer blends all of these POVs together beautifully to make an engaging, cohesive, and epic story.

The story is mainly science fiction with some romance. Meyer does an incredible job of blending fairy tale elements into this epic science fiction story. This book is of course (kind of) a retelling of Snow White. Meyer brings in elements of the evil stepmother, the dwarfs (in the form of the miners who offer Winter assistance), and the poison apple. These elements are cleverly woven in and never feel forced or contrived.

This is an excellent fairy tale retelling, but really it is much more than that. This is just an absolutely beautifully crafted story in general. This is one of those stories that has it all; excellent world-building, engaging characters, action, interesting sci-fi elements, politics, intrigue, and romance.

I have loved every book in this series but this book was the best by far. It was so much fun to see all the characters come together from the first three books and watch how everything is wrapped up. Meyer obviously had the story well planned out from the beginning and it was amazing to see how it all played out.

Overall an incredibly conclusion to the Lunar Chronicles. So many things are done perfectly in this story; it was an excellent series in general. The story is very creative, fun to read, and engaging. This is a long book but I breezed through it in a couple days and it never felt long or slow. The characters, world, and plot were all amazing. This whole series is highly recommended to everyone; especially to those who enjoy creative fairy tale retellings and action packed science fiction.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Series Enders Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge