Winter by Marissa Meyer // in which i cry because this beautiful series is over

 Princess Winter is admired by the Lunar people for her grace and kindness, and despite the scars that mar her face, her beauty is said to be even more breathtaking than that of her stepmother, Queen Levana.

Winter despises her stepmother, and knows Levana won’t approve of her feelings for her childhood friend—the handsome palace guard, Jacin. But Winter isn’t as weak as Levana believes her to be and she’s been undermining her stepmother’s wishes for years. Together with the cyborg mechanic, Cinder, and her allies, Winter might even have the power to launch a revolution and win a war that’s been raging for far too long.

Can Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter defeat Levana and find their happily ever afters?  

 

I haven't written a review in AGES, it feels like, but now I'm BACK! And ready to flail about The Lunar Chronicles again!

Marissa Meyer has solidified her position on my bookshelf as one of my favorite writers. It takes skill to pull off such an excellent, excellent conclusion, and she DEFINITELY has that skill. Winter blew me away. I can honestly say that it was my favorite out of the entire Lunar Chronicles!

Let's talk logically about what was so awesome about this book (otherwise I'm just going to dance around flailing about WHAT A BOOK GO GO CINDER YOU BADASS AND EEEE CRESS AND THORNE I CANT STAND THE ADORBS AND OH IKO IKO MY BABY and then dissolve into a puddle of sadness that the series is over).

Because this is a final book, everything sort of ties together here. As the series progressed, the amount of main characters increased and points of view multiplied - and in Winter, we have the most sub plots yet. However, Marissa Meyer deals with this masterfully, and I never really felt confused. The many plot strands and character arcs twist together into an entirely cohesive and solid story with an extremely satisfactory ending. I struggle with plot in my own writing (as I have complained many times), and so when someone produces something like Winter where there are SO MANY plot bits that somehow just FIT like puzzle pieces, I stand in awe and wonder. Highest commendations to Marissa Meyer.

Characters! The characters in the Lunar Chronicles are always so well written, and so distinct, and the "new" ones we get in Winter (namely, Winter and Jacin) are no exception. Winter is such a darling ball of clouds and sparkles and dreams and I just want to wrap her up and protect her from everything. (Which everyone else kind of does too, actually.) Jacin, even though we've met him in previous books, gets fuller development in Winter, and I grudgingly began to like him. Actually, I think he and I would make a good Winter-protection-pair.

Talking about Winter - I adored the scenes with her and Scarlet! Their friendship is the most wonderful thing. I love how they have their own little endearments they call each other. And the scene with the mutants showed both their strengths kind of wonderfully.

Wolf! I loved meeting his mother. Also, tears. For him and for his mother. For everything that happened and happens to his family. Gosh, he has a hard life.

It seems that Kai has grasped his role as Emperor, and finally is being super proactive. He's grown up! Eee I'm so proud of him.

There's so many shippable things in this book, and Cress and Thorne are my favorites. I'm so glad they got their happily ever after finally, and both of them just make my heart so joyful. Cress is just so huggable and adorable (and I relate to her most of all the characters). And every time words come out of Thorne's mouth, they're funny, no matter how serious the situation. I really want this made into a movie or TV show so that I can see Thorne brought to life because - dang!

Oh, and Iko! She requires a book of her own. She doesn't get an official ship but - mwahaha - I have one for her. And I want it to happen!

The only think I think that could have been improved a bit was the logistical and political side of things. I'd have liked to hear more about the Cinder's thought process during the rebellion. In Cress, she talked about how she wouldn't want to be a ruler of a country/planet/moon, but by Winter it seems she has fully resigned herself to this fact (even though by the end she does make appropriate governmental modifications). I want to see her struggle with choosing to be a leader, and we didn't get enough of that in my opinion.

But that's just minor stuff. This book was fantabulous and I can't wait for Stars Above in February because I don't want the Lunar Chronicles to end! *cries*

Have you read Winter? Who's your favorite character? (Who's your favorite ship?) 

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

So I wrote this review last month and forgot to post it. Wow, go me.

Anyway, the MOST important thing that I have to say here is:

I met the author!

Look --

The book was lovely, the event was lovely, Sabaa was lovely, everything was lovely. <3

Laia is a slave. 

Elias is a soldier. 

Neither is free.

Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.

It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do.

But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy.

There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.

Something to know is that this book was advertised as a standalone. BUT. There is a definite possibility (if the publishers cooperate) that this will be a series. I wish I knew this before reading the book because that ending was a little too open for a standalone, in my opinion. But as series starter, it's totally fine.

My favorite thing about this book is the worldbuilding. It's kind of a mixture of ancient Rome and the ancient middle east, I think, so two thumbs up for not just Western-Europe-Fantasy! I'm always game for some non-medieval-Western-Fantasy. And the depth of this world was just marvelous. I felt totally comfortable in it and such a part of it. I absolutely adore when you can FEEL the world around you - smells and tastes and sounds and everything.

My other favorite thing was the sheer amount of twists in the plot. I literally had NO IDEA what was coming next - anything could happen. Up until the ending, I was entirely unaware of where things could go. This goes for the love triangle/rhombus too... but more on that later.

As I said, the ending kinda disappointed me, but now that I know it's a series, I'm totally cool with it.

My other favorite thing (this whole book is a favorite thing) about this book were the characters. It is told in a dual POV - on one side we have the slave Laia and on the other, the soldier Elias - and their voices were adequately different and understandable.

I found Laia quite a unique character. In these sorts of YA adventures, it's customary to have a heroine who learns to stand up for herself and is badass and heroic and lovely. Which is fine. But seriously, if I was in their shoes, I'd probably curl up in a ball and die. (Seriously, would you survive even the first minute of the Hunger Games? Don't kid yourself. And as much as we appreciate Tris' ability to sacrifice herself over and over again in Divergent - would you?) But Laia is scared. She's feels she has to do something, and save her brother, but she's too scared for her own life to make the right move most of the time.

And frankly, I'm like that too. If a situation comes up where it's asked of me to risk my life to save someone I love - would I? It's a freaky thought, and I hope I'd never have to face it. I wouldn't doubt my desire to save the person - just like Laia so wants to be brave - but I might hesitate just too long and then they're dead. Laia resonated with me so much because I feel like I'd be the exact same in the situations.

Elias is also interesting, but he's more of your traditional YA hero. He has a mindset different from those around him, and is trying to change the way society works. He wants to make the bloody traditions of the soldiers' castle less brutal - and not only less brutal, but completely Good and Ethical. I found his drastically differing opinion a bit of a struggle to believe, since he grew up among these warmongers, so it seems odd that he wouldn't grow up with at least a bit of acceptance of "the way things are." He gets mad at his friend Helene for agreeing with the twisted mindset of their cohorts but - Helene has been trained to think that way. It's her life. It's the only thing she knows.

Where did Elias get this idea that killing people is All Bad, when he grew up in a place that raises people to be killing machines? I get that there's an innate aversion that we are born with when it comes to killing other humans, but it's not all Nature, right? There's Nurture too.

Anyway, that's a minor complaint. Elias is lovely.


Not only did the main characters have requisite depth, all the other surrounding characters had it too. I LOVE THIS. This is authorly skill.

Talking about characters.... the villain was OH SO CREEPY. Those villains that just have 0% concern for human life just freak me out, and she was one of them. But she wasn't shallow and "just evil" either. She had a killer backstory (no pun intended) and I love it. 

Let's talk love rhombus, because - yup - there is one.
Somehow, I don't mind it, though. Usually, when there's a love triangle/square/whatever, I ship people almost immediately and stick with the same ship for the rest of the story. (And, not to brag or anything, but my ships rarely sink. So I will continue with this method.)
BUT. In Ember, I have no extreme-OTP-ohmygawdthey'reperfecttogether. Nope. I still haven't figured out who's best for whom. I LOVE THIS. Since I'm so used to being able to predict who'll end up with whom, I love this unpredictability.

At first I was mad because the ending kinda resolved the rhombus but not really, because two people were left in the corners without a pairing. (Is that a spoiler? I hope not.) But as a series I'm excited to see where this goes. Thumbs up to logical writing out of the love stories and legitimate deep characters which just made it real. There wasn't a "bad boy" vs "nice boy" choice which IS SO REFRESHING. I realized I wasn't rooting for one over the other. I MYSELF WAS CONFLICTED AS MUCH AS THE CHARACTERS WERE. Good job, Sabaa. 

Highly recommended. Go read it now. NOW.

Have you read Ember? What did you think? And what's your opinion on badass heroines? Where do you think the line can be drawn between fearless/awesome and realistic?

Fierce Reads Tour (My First Author Event EVER!)

You may know that Classics were my first love, and will always have a special place in my heart. But the one big problem with Classics is - all the authors are dead. You can't follow them on Twitter, you can't write them fanmail, and they sure as heck won't be going on a book tour anytime soon. (Unless - they come back as zombies. But no.)

This past year or so, I've discovered the beautiful world of YA lit (and a lot of beautiful YA lit bloggers, too!), and through that, I now have a bunch of favorite authors who are very much so alive! That means that I can actually meet them face to face and speak to them and get all nervous about it - how exciting!

So last Friday, when the Fierce Reads tour (with Marissa Meyer!) stopped by at Arlington Heights Library (about 45 minutes from my house), I stole my mother's van and set off.

This was, momentously, my first ever author event, so I was unbearably excited. (Just drive, Sophia. You don't want to get into any car accidents. Focus on the road.) (I made it to the library quite safely.)

Out of the authors at the event, I had only read the books of Marissa Meyer, but I had heard of the others through Twitter and other blogs.
Oh here they are: Jessica Brody, Nikki Kelly, Gennifer Albin, and Marissa Meyer. They all were hilarious.

I had a grand time, bought books and got them signed, and ate cake. Here is what else happened:

1. I met other people who love the same books I love.
It's great to see how many different kinds of people are at events like this. At first I felt out of place because of all the young kids, but then I realized this is YA for heaven's sakes. They are the target audience. I guess in the book blogger community I'm used to older people reading YA, and tend to forget that it's main audience is actually a good bunch of years younger! Ha.
But there were adults too. I sat next to a friendly English teacher who chatted up with everyone she would meet.

2. I met the creator of some of my favorite books. It's so inspirational. That sounds cheesy, but it's true. I have a dream, and these women - not much older than I - are living that same dream. It's possible!
There were three friends behind me in the signing line, and one of their mothers had come along as chauffeur. I over heard the mother say, motioning to the authors, "Girls! Take these as your role models. These are young women who have worked hard to publish books and become successful authors. They should be an inspiration to you."
I wanted to turn around and say, "Pay attention!" to the girls, because they were NOT. And what the mother was saying was the absolute truth!

3. I got some excellent writing advice. Love Q&A. I didn't get to ask any questions of my own, but it's just so wonderful hearing advice and encouragement from other authors. It made me so excited for NaNo!

4. I got books signed! And I got some pretty awesome swag.
Poster signed by all four authors, a blueprint of the Rampion, and some glorious stickers (which will stick on my laptop once I actually get one):

And finally, the books:

The Lunar Chronicles, as the newest additions to my library, get to sit (temporarily) on the shelf of honor.

Though I WAS disappointed that there were no hardcover Cinder's or Scarlet's for sale, because I totally would have bought them. Oh well.
I came home utterly glowing (and safe - no car wrecks on the way home either). I SO want to go to more of these events!

If you want to read an actual logical recap of the event, you can head on over to Polished Page Turners, who transcribed the entire Q&A session.

What author event have you been to lately? Do you remember your first? Or - if you haven't been to an event - whom would you LOVE to meet?

~Sophia