Cress

I have been working my way slowly through this series, I am determined to get there by the end of 2017 and so although I was a little hesitant I decided to press on and read Cress, the third instalment of The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer.

This fairytale telling series has been hugely popular since its release but I have struggled a little with the first two books. Although containing elements of the different fairytales upon which they are based, Cinderella, Red Riding Hood and in the case of Cress - Rapunzel, the setting has really stretched the boundaries in this series with it being set in a futuristic world where humans are battling against a deadly plague and the ongoing threat from a race known as Lunar's who live on another planet.

The series continues in book 3 with our ongoing heroine Cinder still on the run from the authorities, along the way she has gathered a band of misfits who are helping her to come to terms with the fact she is, in fact, Lunar and to help her to stop the evil Queen Levana from carrying out her plan to marry the emperor Prince Kai and then have him killed. This time around she meets Cress, a prisoner on board a satellite floating through space. With no contact with anyone, her job is to monitor the activities of the rulers on earth and to feed their actions back to the Lunar Queen.

Cress, fulfilling the Rapunzel role, is an interesting addition to the cast of Lunar Chronicles characters. Naive and a little immature at the outset of the book she grows throughout this novel as her story loosely follows the Rapunzel tale. She is likeable and the burgeoning romance between her and Captain Thorne is really wonderful, this brash and cocky captain is not always subtle or romantic but he is so very kind to Cress and her adoration of him is sweet to read about.

This instalment of the series is the longest so far, coming in at over 500 pages Meyer is really packing in a lot of plot to this book. I think with Scarlett that had been one of my reservations, that the story didn't seem to move forward as far as I'd hoped. This time around the plot is more developed. We see more of life on Lunar and learn more about the Royal family there which sets us up for the next book in the series.

I enjoyed this book more than I anticipated I would. Sometimes I find all the spaceships and cyborgs and tech a little bit of a distraction to the parts of the book I enjoy, the real fairy tale retelling parts and at times this has caused me frustration but this time around I managed to put that aside a little more and enjoy the story behind the setting. I am glad I'm persevering with the series but am now keen to read the final instalment and conclude everyone's stories as it now feels about time all the threads started to come together towards its natural conclusion.