Fairest by Marissa Meyer

Summary (from Goodreads):

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.

Review:

I love this series. I’ve grown to see Meyer as a master storyteller. She weaves together such different stories, characters, romances, and plot lines and she does it all with such sci-fi style. When I learned that the evil Queen Levana was getting her own book, I was really excited. I don’t normally read a lot of novellas or short stories put out by authors between books in their series, but I can’t really think of this as a story or novella; it’s over 200 pages. It’s a book. I also love reading how villains become the way they are. It’s one of the best aspects of the show, Once Upon a Time.

That being said, I did not love this as much as I was hoping to. The plot, the suspense, and the style I have grown to appreciate were all there. And the setting was awesome. I loved seeing how people on the moon lived! What was lacking for me were the characters in this one.

I did get a nice dose of why Queen Levana is the way she is, but I never liked her. I guess I was hoping to like her in the beginning. I was hoping to be able to humanize her and to see a clear moment when she decided to become who she became. I get not all people and stories work this way. And I get that some people are just bad. I guess I was just hoping this would be a different story.

On another note, I felt like she was lying to herself all the time. I wanted certain actions to be clearly defined as revenge, but instead they were kind of hazy and never really taken that way. I also wanted to like the “love” interest, but I never really understood him. I felt bad for him, but I never understood him. And none of the other characters stood out at all. It was clearly all about Levana. That’s okay too. I just wish there was more to her. Because there isn’t that much more to her, I feel like I know how to predict what will happen to her in the last book of the series. And I was hoping for more of a surprise.

I will take any writing Meyer puts out there, and I will read it. This was my least favorite of all the things I’ve read by her so far. And it certainly took me longer to read than the rest, despite it’s smaller size. I wanted more from Levana. Is it weird that I wanted to like the villain more?  Any way, I give it a 7/10. And I’m greatly looking forward to Winter.