Cress

The third book of The Lunar Chronicles brings Rapunzel into the group of fairy-tale heroines going up against the wicked queen Levana. Though she's named Cress (short for Crescent Moon) in this book. True to the science fiction setting, she's been trapped in a satellite orbiting the Earth for the past seven years. She's used that time to hone both her hacking skills and her imagination, and so she joins up as one of the more naive yet skilled allies.

This book was a lot of fun. It's thoroughly predictable, both because I'm familiar with the fairy tale and because it's a tad formulaic. But despite knowing what was coming, I had a ton of fun reading this. The action starts right off the bat, with Cress joining our known band almost immediately. This was more satisfying than the last book, which kept Cinder and Scarlet separate until the very end. The characters get to hang out in new configurations, which keeps everything fresh and fun.

My only gripe is the romances. Everyone is paired off all nice and neat by the end of this book. Cinder with Kai, Scarlet with Wolf, and Cress with Thorne. And Jacin's obviously being set up as the paramour of Winter. Maybe it's not quite as neat as all that, and it is fun to see Cress figure out the difference between fairy-tale romance and the real thing. But it would be nice to have one of these princesses end up alone or with another princess or something. It's a small gripe, though, and it easy to get swept up in the romance of it all. That's a big part of the fairy tales, after all.

The final book comes out in a few weeks, and it's one that I probably will buy in hardcover. I just need to see this all wrapped up and read everyone's happy endings.

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