Review- Winter by Marissa Meyer

Blogmas Day 10

Winter by Marissa Meyer

There will be a spoiler warning 

So I can't really describe this book without spoilers as it is the fourth book in the series. So I'm going to leave a synopsis of Cinder, the first book, instead. 

'Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future'

My Rating- 5 stars
Genre- Young adult, romance, fantasy, science fiction 
Review- Non spoiler until there is a spoiler warning

Winter is the final book in the much loved series of the Lunar Chronicles, so naturally my heart is slightly broken. Cinder is the first book, followed by Scarlet, Cress and now Winter. These books are absolutely amazing, I have loved following these characters and have completely fallen in love with the world. The Lunar Chronicles are all sci-fi retellings of a different fairy tale, Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and Snow White. I cannot believe that the series has come to an end, I would like for Marissa Meyer to just constantly be writing more and more about these characters, but all good things must come to an end. 
My favourite of this series was definitely Cress, but Winter closely follows. This book was absolutely jam-packed with action, something was always happening. Winter, the character not the book, was such an incredibly built character who I just wanted desperately to get her happily ever after! When this book came in the post I was completely astonished at how big it was, at more than 800 pages it took me a little bit of time to get through, but in the end it was completely worth it. 
I found that at times this book could be a tiny bit dragged out, at some points I felt that it could have been flushed out a little bit. But, hey, no book is completely perfect! It was still fantastic though, obviously. 
If you haven't read these books yet, or maybe haven't read the rest of the series, then I seriously highly recommend that you do. I honestly think that a huge spectrum of people would enjoy these novels, there is something for everyone. Whether its the amazingly built world or the characters, the action, the romance... I honestly think that this is a general crowd pleaser.
But now I am going to get into some spoilers because I need to get some feelings out! If you don't want to get spoiled then go and read the book, then come back! If so, I hope you enjoyed this non-spoiler section.

Winter discussion
I honestly did not think I would cry at this book, maybe I misjudged myself. It was the moment I finished this book and I read the last page that I just broke. 'And they all lived happily to the end of their days.' For some reason that made me sad, tears followed. thank you Marissa Meyer. So I'm going to talk about each character and their story and discuss them all separately!
Cinder
Oh Cinder, the one who began it all. I am a big fan of Cinder and her book was what made me fall in love with this series and world. I was so happy that everything turned out perfectly for her, her ending with Kai was perfection, I found myself giggling and sighing. It seemed like the whole world was against Kai and Cinder being together, everything was just always going wrong for them. It was such sweet relief when they finally got their happily ever after. When Kai asked Cinder if she would consider being Empress, I completely swooned... Cinder through this book reminded me a lot of Katniss in a weird way, maybe it was the whole 'rebellion' thing, but I kept being reminded of The Hunger Games through this book. Maybe its because the last book I read was a re-read of Catching Fire. I love how strong Cinder is and kind of wished I was her at some points. When Levanna stabbed her I was SO tense, I generally thought she was dead for a good minute. 
Scarlet
Perhaps my least favourite of the 4 girls, nothing against her, but Scarlet (the book) doesn't stand out to me as much as the others. But of course I still love her character and felt so bad for her when she was imprisoned on Luna. For some reason I was completely convinced that Wolf was going to die in this book, I honestly don't know why but I just felt like he was doomed. Luckily, this was not the case and their story ended beautifully. Poor Wolf! When he woke up all biologically engineered, my heart hurt for him- I'm so glad that everything ended well for him and Scarlet, they were wonderful.
Cress
Oh, Cress and Thorne, you are my ultimate OTP ever, I will never forget you guys. When Cress was split up from the team very early on in the book I was absolutely gutted, I adore Thorne and Cress together- them being apart hurts me! I can't see how anyone could ever hate Cress, she is the sweetest character that I think I have ever come across, she has such a wonderfully big heart but is also kind of a badass. I wish I had mad hacker skills like her, I loved how she helped Jacin to fake-kill Winter, it was such a good part! Cress and Thorne's scene before the coronation was probably my favourite of the whole book, the wait for them to get together hurt, but the outcome was glorious. When Cress was stabbed, I had to honestly stop reading for a couple of minutes, I thought she was dead and I was a complete mess. Meyer could honestly write a book about Cress and Thorne going grocery shopping and it would still be gold.
Winter
I feel attached to Winter, she is such a lovable character who you just want to hug. Jacin's protectiveness of her was so endearing and  the whole way through the book I was constantly rooting for them. Winter's mental illness was actually quite scary at some points, when the wall were bleeding it sent shivers down my spine, I wanted her to get better so badly. Even though we got an 800 page book with her name on it, I feel like we didn't get enough Winter- I would love to read more about her! I definitely found myself looking forward to her chapters because they were always interesting. Ryu's death absolutely broke my heart, I couldn't stop thinking about it whilst I continued reading. But I honestly could not stop reading at that point, the whole fake death sequence with Winter and Jacin was so well done and I just loved it (as well as being very sad)
And because I have obviously missed the star of the show, I must commemorate Iko. Iko is definitely one of the best characters to grace this series, her whit and boy crazy, fashion loving attitude have cracked me up since book 1. I love her. I don't think we are finished with Iko for some reason, I think that there is going to be something with her and Kinney, there were a couple of hints through the book. Maybe I'm just desperate for another book but if this happens, I would love it!

So that is my review of Winter, I hope you enjoyed this if you've managed to read the whole post. I rambled quite a bit, which normally happens when I have liked a book (so, really its a good thing). On that note, I will see you tomorrow for another day of Blogmas and hope for lots more Marissa Meyer reviews in the future.
-Darcy