Winter Review (Lunar Chronicles Book 5)(Spoilers!)

I found this fanart here! May_12324 also does a lot of other really beautiful art, so check out that page sometime for cool book-related art.

Songs I listened to while reading this:

The last character, Winter, is shunned by her stepmother Levana due to the scars on her face and due to the fact that she thinks that using her Lunar abilities is wrong. Not using her abilities has caused her to suffer from many horrible hallucinations and other things, as she tries to protect those around her. Jacin, her guard is her only light in the darkness, but her stepmother even wants to take him away from her, as Winter needs to simply be married off to royalty and out of her hair.

The rest of the crew sneak to Luna with Kai, and they plan to start an uprising against Levana. Kai must accept Levana’s proposal and marry her in order to gain entrance to the castle, while the rest of the team hides out and tries to figure out how to get the citizens of Luna to revolt against their oppressive queen.

I’m not going to summarize the whole book, as it was over 800 pages, but instead I am going to focus on the important pieces.

Cinder spent most of this book trying to get her team members back when they kept getting taken, trying to make the citizens of Luna revolt, and struggling with her seemingly weak Lunar abilities. I was expecting a bit more out of her, but the most interesting tidbit that stood out to me was when she learned that her mother was even more of a monster than Levana. Other than that, I wasn’t that intrigued by her as I read this book.

Winter was supposed to be one of the most interesting characters as a princess who would sacrifice her own mental health in order to not hurt anyone. However, by the middle of the book, she seemed to be just the annoying crazy princess. She would do something smart once in awhile, but the rest of the time she would simply be just rambling about how the walls were bleeding. She didn’t even get a “happy ending” like the others in the book did. She was still mad by the end, and Jace was just holding her together until hopefully the future treatment would work. I felt cheated by her character, like I had hoped she would at least get to die a heroes death or something. But instead she is even more stuck in her own head.

Jacin had to act as Levana’s slave for most of the book, but he was useful for helping Winter and Scarlet escape, and for many things throughout the book. I felt that sometimes he was just put there so that Winter would have a match and wouldn’t be alone, but as Winter deteriorated, he took on a more prominent role.

Wolf finally got his strength back after being reunited with his mate Scarlet, and has become useful again. His side story with his mother was interesting, but then she died really quickly.

Cress and Thorne have become that typical teen pining couple. They were probably the most irritating, because they always seem to either be doing something slightly heroic or talking about how something is wrong with their nonexistent relationship. And yet the two of them seem to be the only ones to get a mostly happy ending.

Kai was just there to be the bait as he had to marry Levana. I did not even see him grow throughout the entire series, he is still just a prince, and the only time I saw him really stand up was when he tried to stab Levana. I think.

Scarlet really saved this book for me. She went from being the hometown girl who just wanted to save her grandmother, and has gone through torture. Now, she is the strong mate of an alpha wolf who knows how to control herself when it is necessary, and fight when it is also necessary. She was Winter’s protector when Jacin was not available, and took care of them both pretty well when they were separated from the rest of the team. She also got a semi-happy ending with Wolf, which I felt that she actually deserved.

Overall, this was a very long and drawn out disappointment for me. The action scenes were interesting, but I just could not see the development or growth of the characters the way I wanted to. I had hoped that the series would improve to Heartless levels of writing, but it seems to have not moved that far past Cinder. If I had to pick a favorite book in this series it would probably be Cress, but I would have loved to see the entire series just in Scarlet’s POV. This was a disappointing end to an average series, but I am glad that it is over. Hopefully Stars Above will provide more of Scarlet’s point of view, and more development of Winter’s character.

Overall Rating: 2/5