Winter: 04 (Lunar Chronicles) Library Binding – Large Print, 6 Jan. 2016

I had to take a little bit of time to wrap my head around the feels I have for this book (also I was at work) but now I think I'm ready to review yet another amazing read from Marissa Meyer. This entire series has absolutely blown me away and though I still think 'Cress' was my favourite, this final installment was definitely deserving of it's five star rating (as were it's predecessors). In this book readers finally get to see Lunar and I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting nearly as much detail as I received. Meyer built up the city of Artemisia beautifully in a way that was vaguely reminiscent of The Capitol and it's outlying Districts in 'The Hunger Games'. After hearing so much about a Futuristic Earth, this really did a great job of feeling entirely new to me and yet comfortingly familiar. Meyer's world-building has always been great but this book was the best by far. Winter & Jacin of course we met during 'Cress' but I consider them the new characters in this one because we get to see a lot more of them. One of the things I've loved about 'The Lunar Chronicles' so far is the character diversity and she did not disappoint: Winter's mental health was a huge part of the story and I loved that it in no way affected Jacin's feelings for her. Also, yet more ethnic diversity on the part of Meyer because Winter, a remade Snow White, was a POC! I loved this SO MUCH! The plot was full of twists and turns though man, this book was so much longer than all of the others. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing but it did take me by surprise and I enjoyed the second half a lot more than the first (the build-up was a little slow). Still, Meyer got this final installment totally right: romances to ship until the end of time, characters that will stick with me for a long time to come, world-building that blew me away and of course the ending that I wanted to see for such a spectacular series.

I actually can't comprehend the fact that this series is over. And I'm thinking back to when I was reading Cinder, and its kind of amazing how much these books improved, I did like Cinder when I read it but I know that if I decided to re-read it would be a case of just getting through Cinder and kind of getting through Scarlet until I got to the good stuff in Cress and Winter. Though that could be mostly down to the fact that Cress and Thorne are my faves.Anyway, I feel like this was a good conclusion to the series, even though I am slightly devastated its over. I put off reading this book after finishing the first three from mid-February to early-March, partly because it was just so intimidating. I mean this book was like 840 pages, one chapter was 1% progress on my kindle! I have to say though that I raced through this and it didn't at all feel as long as I was expecting, don't get me wrong, a lot happened, but it was fast-paced and enticing. And, I'm actually happy I had the three month gap as when I was reading all the interactions between the characters it just made me so happy to be experiencing all their relationships again, and everything just felt fresh.Basically, Winter was totally worth staying holed up in my room for the whole of last night and the entirety of today.Marissa Meyer is absolutely amazing at creating a retelling of a classic Disney story that fits seamlessly into a more futuristic, sci-fi universe. When I was reading Winter's story I could see all of the original inspiration from the story of Snow White and it felt so different, but at the same time so familiar - in a good way. I also love the characters in these books, they are all so developed and fun to read about, Meyer does a wonderful job of making them all so different but so perfect together as a group, and all of the relationships feel real and sincere.To sum it up I loved the entirety of The Lunar Chronicles series, and I'll be sure to get to Fairest and Stars above soon, I don't want to let go if any of these characters just yet!

While Cinder prepares for a revolution on Lunar, she will have an unlikely new ally in her cousin. Winter, the beloved princess that has allowed herself to be driven crazy, rather than use her lunar gift.One word review: long-winded. (I will leave it to you to argue whether hyphenated words count as one or two words...)I got this as an audiobook, and it's the longest book I've tackled, possibly ever. At 827 pages, and ninety-odd chapters, it is a beast.Unfortunately, for me, many of those chapters dragged and it was an effort to keep going, rather than a delight in having so much Lunar Chronicles to wrap up in.It could have done without the first two-thirds. And without the last tenth or so.Yeah, the first half to two-thirds just plain annoyed me. I ended up on the verge of disliking our main character Cinder. Which is such a shame, because I absolutely loved her story in the first couple of books.Basically, a huge chunk of the book breaks down into sections where Winter is acting crazy - Lunars who don't use their gift get driven to insanity by it. She's smarter than she seems, and did grow on me throughout the book.And then you have Cinder and the <i>grand</i> revolution...Two things that really wound me up about Cinder's part of this story:1) She keeps losing members of her crew, because they have decided to heroically sacrifice themselves, or Levana and her cronies manage to catch them. Cinder follows in the footsteps of Jack Sparrow and Jeremy Clarkson in the sense that "any man that falls behind, gets left behind".They make no effort to rescue Scarlet, or Cress, or Wolf; or try to find out if they're even still alive.They carry on, showing a little bit of stress at their "friends" disappearance, but doing bugger all to solve the situation.2) Which leads onto the second thing: they spend a lot of time doing bugger all.When their plans for stirring up a revolution comes off the rails almost immediately, because it involves Cress and (mild spoiler), they get split up early on.So Cinder and co. head out to find relative safety, and spend days hiding, doing nothing, hoping something will go in their favour.You know, all that wasted time, they could have been contacting the outlying sectors, sourcing allies, making <i>plans</i>.Luckily for Cinder, Cress manages to play the video that announces Cinder's return, and that she will be marching on the palace on the day of the coronation.*sigh*Other than that, there are a few minor niggles.It gets very repetitive, as various members of the main cast are taken over by Lunar mind control, and try to kill their friends. Various members are in peril, but they escape death just in time; or their deaths are put off for some ludicrous reason.It kinda reminded me of James Bond or Doctor Evil, with a very convoluted way of killing our main characters, and assuming that they are dead.Overall, it was an OK story. I did enjoy parts of it, and I was happy to complete the Lunar Chronicles.