SERIESous Spoilers: Winter by Marissa Meyer

SERIESous Spoilers: A feature where we discuss what happened in our favourite (or maybe not so favourite) books. Did you like the plot changes? The romance? What surprised you? What angered you? And what do you think will happen next?

This month’s SERIESous Spoilers Pick:

Winter by Marissa Meyer | The Lunar Chronicles

Perhaps I jumped on the Lunar Chronicles bandwagon at the end of its journey, but I really have some things that I would like to say about the grande finale to one of my new favourite series!

–The Length!–

WOW, that was such a long book! It took me a solid week and a bit to finish it all! It’s been a long time since I read a book of that size!

But despite the length, I thought that the book had a good flow to it. I felt like it always built and had a few climaxes that kept me on the edge of my seat. And I just love these characters so much that it was great to spend a that time with them before we said goodbye.

–Thorne reveals his feelings–

I have to say that in Cress, one of my favourite aspects of the book is that Thorne and Cress don’t get together at the end of the book. While I knew that the two would eventually (at least I had really, really hoped) end up together, I thought it was refreshing to see that journey spread out a little longer. Given everything that happens in Cress, I liked that they had more time to figure each other out and get that connection established. To see them together at the end would be too easy (and predictable) and I didn’t want that for these two.

And I thought it was really worth the wait! Their scenes together were probably my favourite of the entire book (Winter). Thorne had me swooning and Cress had me fangirling  as her wishes came true. I had a dopey smile on my face after the big reveal–it was rather embarrassing.

–Winter’s “condition”–

I really liked Winter as a character. I thought her situation was really interesting and complimented Levana’s story well. I mean, you have Levana showing you what happens when you use your powers too much and the disillusion it can cause; you have Cinder in the middle struggling to come to grips with her power; and then you have Winter at the complete opposite end of the spectrum where she doesn’t use her powers–essentially denying who she is–and she is completely delusional because of it.

As a literary critic, I get it; as a reader, I struggle with it.

I suppose the best way to describe my feelings on it all is “confusing”. I felt like the book started mostly focusing on her and her situation and from that I had a good handle on it all. But somewhere along the way, Winter gets a little cast aside (and I totally understand why in the grand scheme of things) and I feel like her development gets stifled because of it. I just wanted a little more information on what was happening with her, especially near the end when it seems like everything is falling apart for her.

–The End of Levana–

The mind-manipulation in this book really, really got to me. Limitations of power, specifically magic, is one of the reasons I struggle with witch or magic-based stories. Where do you cap the power? and how can you say this can or cannot happen when the limitation can be seemingly limitless? (I hope that makes sense!)

These limitations weren’t really a huge issue in this book, but I found it got tiresome to have people manipulated all the time. The narration being in the 3rd person didn’t help either in trying to keep it all straight.

Someone asked Marissa Meyer on Goodreads what would be one thing she would change in the series and she said “I would make the Lunar gift less powerful” and I completely agree. I felt like the only time this story really dragged was during those scenes where the mind-manipulation was the sole source of action. I think I wanted more outwitting than direct mind-games to be the downfall of Queen Levana when all was said and done.

What are your thoughts? Agree or disagree? were you satisfied with how everything ended?

Please leave a comment below!