Fairest - Marissa Meyer (Review)

Fairest - Marissa Meyer
Series The Lunar Chronicles #3.5
Genres: Young Adult Fiction, Fantasy
Publication date:  January 27th 2015
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Format: 222 pages
How I got it: My public library 
Buy it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble 
My rating: 4/5 

In this stunning bridge book between Cress and Winter in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles, Queen Levana’s story is finally told.

Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who is the fairest of them all?

Fans of the Lunar Chronicles know Queen Levana as a ruler who uses her “glamour” to gain power. But long before she crossed paths with Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress, Levana lived a very different story – a story that has never been told . . . until now. 

Marissa Meyer spins yet another unforgettable tale about love and war, deceit and death. This extraordinary book includes full-color art and an excerpt from Winter, the next book in the Lunar Chronicles series.

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My thoughts:

I couldn’t get enough of The Lunar Chronicles story and once I found out about this companion book I needed to read it.   This was the first book that I read by Marissa Meyer I listened to the entire series.   I enjoyed reading this book.  I feel that Marissa’s writing comes through no matter if you are listening to the book or reading it so it was perfect.

This book tells the story of Levana and how she became queen of Luna.  I got to read this book right before Winter so it gave me an entirely different perspective of Levana and I feel it shaped my opinion of the last book.

Levana is an interesting character to read about, we don’t get much of a background of her in the series so this was the perfect book to expand upon her.   We got to follow Levana during her teenage years into adulthood.  We got to hear about all the events that shaped her into the person that she is today.  I felt like this book is a must read for the series it gave me an entire different opinion about Levana and gave me a lot more depth.

The author does a great job creating Levana as a meeker child and showing how she developed into the ruler she is today.   I loved to hear about all the struggles that Levana has experienced because she didn’t just become a ruthless leader for no reason.  The background helped me with understanding Levana as a character.  The author goes into great details and makes Luna come alive in this book just like the rest of the series.  Marissa has a way of writing that brings that characters to life and leaves you wanting more.

I would suggest this as a weekend read.  It was very fast paced and an easy read.  I would highly recommend reading it right before Winter since we get a lot of Levana in the last book! 

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About the Author

One of my first spoken words was “story” (right along with “bath” and “cookie”), my favorite toy as an infant was a soft, squishable book, and I’ve wanted to be a writer since I first realized such a job existed.
When I was fourteen my best friend introduced me to anime and fanfiction—over the years I would complete over forty Sailor Moon fanfics under the penname Alicia Blade. Those so inclined can still find my first stories at fanfiction.net. Writing fanfic turned out to be awesome fun and brought me in contact with an amazing group of fanfiction readers and writers. As Alicia Blade, I also had a novelette, “The Phantom of Linkshire Manor,” published in the gothic romance anthology Bound in Skin (CatsCurious Press, 2007).

When I was sixteen I worked at The Old Spaghetti Factory in Tacoma, Washington, affectionately termed “The Spag.” (Random factoid: This is also the restaurant where my parents met some 25 years before.) I attended Pacific Lutheran University where I sorted mail that came to the dorm, carted tables and chairs around campus, and took writing classes, eventually earning a Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing and Children’s Literature. Knowing I wanted a career in books, I would also go on to receive a Master’s degree in Publishing from Pace University (which you can learn more about here). After graduation, I worked as an editor in Seattle for a while before becoming a freelance typesetter and proofreader.

Then, day of days, someone thought it would be a good idea to give me a book deal, so I became a full-time writer. CINDER is my first novel, though I have an adorable collection of unfinished ones lying around too.

I now live with my husband and our three cats (Calexandria Josephine, Stormus Enormous, and Blackland Rockwell III), who go in and out, in and out, about eight hundred times a day. My favorite non-bookish things include Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, re-watching episodes of Firefly, and playing all manners of dress-up.

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