Snuggly Oranges

Before Cress, I was already listing The Lunar Chronicles as one of my favorite series at the moment. But Cress freaking cemented it as one of my all-time favorite series. This book. THIS BOOK. With its 560 pages. It was amazing and addictive, and by far the best of the series so far.

Cress has to be pretty much my favorite character. Right from the first chapter, I was in love with her. She reminded me a lot of Clara, as Oswin, in the Asylum of the Daleks, the first episode of series 7 of Doctor Who. Nope, I can't pass up a Doctor Who reference opportunity. Sorry not sorry.

So Cress is stuck in this satellite, can't do anything, but finds quirky ways to amuse herself and tries to make a difference and help others with her kickass computer hacking skills, despite her limitations. She was just adorable. Though she is seriously lonely, she tries to bury that. So while Cress wasn't the fierce, kickass female character, I absolutely love her - probably more than I love Cinder and Scarlet. She may not have been as quirky and outspoken as Clara, but she stole my heart anyway because she was way too adorbs.

I also really love her and Thorne. I ship it. I ship it hard. It is my favorite ship of the series. From the first chapters, where she has her child-like idolizing crush on him, to where they meet and she tries to convince him of his goodness, to all the times he looks out for her, to that moment in that battle... Oh my gosh. It was absolutely freaking perfect. And, without a doubt, their chapters together were my favorites.

However, I must confess, I ship all the ships in this series. Cinder and Kai, the struggles they go through, with the doubts they have about each other, it was absolutely endearing. I even found myself shipping Scarlet and Wolf this time around. While I was not a fan of them in Scarlet, the plot here definitely works in the ship's favor. I was surprised at how many Wolf feels I had, but I dare you to try to ignore his pain. I can even already tell that I'm going to fall hard for Winter's ship. It's unusual for me to actually be an active fan of so many canon ships, but this shows how great Marissa Meyer builds up different relationships (and they are, indeed, all very different). Each relationship really had this irresistible fairy tale romance quality. I couldn't fight it, even if I wanted to, which I definitely did not.

There's more to this story than the romance though. The plot packs a punch. At 560 pages, this is the longest book I read this year. Seriously. But it didn't feel that long at all. It was just addictive. I needed more, more, more. I wasn't too familiar with the Rapunzel fairy tale, so what happened with Thorne... So many feelings! I just loved the personal struggles, the world, the action, the politics - seriously, hooray for those chapters from Kai's POV. And Dr. Erland! asdfjkl; Even the secondary characters are done justice. I just loved everything about this book. I was so anxious when the group was separated and seriously pleased when they were united again and kicking butt like a team. It's a rich cast of characters who I just love to see in action together. I really loved the different characters, because I do feel like they're all very different, but also very likable. I think Cress really helped with that because each character goes through a different plot and struggle, and I had no difficulty telling the POVs apart. It was just plain wonderful.

Summing Up:

I don't know what else to tell you, guys. If this book is not on your "most anticipated in 2014" list, you need to fix that. If you're not reading this series... I don't really know what to say to you. This is absolutely fantastic: great characters, wonderful world building, engrossing writing, plenty of feels, and ships that are setting sail. I need Winter. I'm almost upset that I got to borrow an ARC of Cress because that means I need to wait more than a year for Winter. Except not really. Borrowing this ARC is one of the highlights of the year. And this book is definitely one of my favorites of the year.

GIF it to me straight!

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