Cress by Marissa Meyer

Title: Cress

Author Name: Marissa Meyer

Age Rating: 14+

Star Rating: ✦✦✦✦✦

Genre: Fractured Fairy Tale, Sci-fi

Summary: 

Blonde bombshell Cress is confident, beautiful, and talented… At least that’s how she is in her daydreams. Crescent Moon, aka Cress, is a skinny little Shell girl living on a satellite. Born unlucky, she could never dream to possess the powers that her gifted brethren from Luna do. Socially awkward after years of limited human interaction, she’s got basically nothing going for her. Except for maybe her dazzling mane of tangled blond hair that reaches past her toes and curls around (and under) the wheels of her chair. 

Overall, as a social reject from Luna, Cress is lucky to be exempt from the strict infanticide laws concerning her kind. Somehow, Cress’s fairy tale begins when her mad hacking skills get her saved by a dashing knight named Carswell Thorne. Now that Cress has escaped her title of a damsel will she be able to help Cinderella take over the world she was left out of? Insert dramatic revenge music… dun dun dun!!!!!!! 

Favorite Character: 

Bruh, I don’t know what to tell you, but Cinder is still my favorite socially awkward child. Yes, I play favorites, I didn’t think I’d have to admit it until today. Honestly, character development was on point in the third installment of this series. Lots of Authors are not very good at keeping up that sense of urgency and action during the ‘ceasefire’ period of a story. 

Lucky for us, Cinder is eager to get that over with as she and her friend’s race to complete their plans. In the book, we see a lot of how Cinder is a reluctant leader. Despite having an awkward disposition, she also possesses the type of charisma that pulls people towards her, which is essential for the main character of the series. 

Storyline Development: 

Cress is a strong female lead for this novel. It doesn’t matter that she’s a damsel in distress, Cress grew a pair when she decided to stand up to her oppressor, and escape the tower *ahem* satellite she was trapped in. I think this book is my favorite in the series so far. 

Cinder (the first novel) was amazing at worldbuilding, but due to my allergy to research, I didn’t really get what most of the terms in the book meant until much later. On the other hand, Scarlett was sort of predictable, mainly because the plot of the original fairy tale gives away all that is going to happen. On the other hand, Cress wasn’t as predictable.

For example, the pacing helped make me more eager to keep reading. Additionally, it was really clever how Meyer incorporated the instances of “walking the desert blind” and gave good reason for the length of Cress’s hair. 

While it may seem insignificant, having continuity and an actual connection to the source material makes me feel more nostalgia for watching Tangled. (Though I don’t really watch Disney princess movies anymore since the songs create a lot of cringe in my heart.) 

Worldbuilding: 

Amazing!!! It was really good, and Meyer did not leave the explanations of the world to rot away. Many authors like to explain things and then forget to use them later on. Yet Meyer remained consistent with everything. I can’t wait to see her work her world-building magic on the setting for Luna in the books Winter and Fairest.