Right off the bat, I have to
say that while I’ve absolutely loved the Lunar
Chronicles so far, Fairest: Levana’s
Story is definitely my least favorite book in the series. For the record, I
still have to read Winter, so that
opinion may change. As I said in my review for Cress, I was really hoping that this book would give
Levana some depth and complexity, both as a villain and as a character in
general. To be fair, I do think that this book gave Levana some complexity and depth, but unfortunately it didn’t give her too
much of those things, which as a result, greatly hindered my enjoyment of Fairest.
The biggest problem that I
have with Fairest is the fact that right
from the beginning of the book, Levana comes across as being so self-centered,
unlikable and evil that it was extremely hard for me to get emotionally
invested in Levana as a character and care about her, or get invested in what
was happening throughout the book. While the Lunar Chronicles series as a whole has made me think about the TV
show Once Upon a Time a lot, as well
as the show Grimm, since they’re both
shows that involve reimagining fairy tales; Fairest
reminded me a lot of the season one episode of Once Upon a Time, “The Stable Boy” where the backstory behind
Regina’s hatred for Snow White was revealed. I pretty much had the same
problems with this book as I did with that episode of Once Upon a Time. The reveal of what happened to make Regina hate
Snow White so much ended up being incredibly disappointing, and it was honestly
rather difficult to go along with the idea that Regina was justified in blaming
Snow White for the death of Daniel, who was the man that she loved and wanted
to marry when it was her mother, Cora, who had actually killed Daniel. While I
wasn’t crazy about the explanation as to why Regina hated Snow White so much
and wanted to get revenge on her, I was still able to have at least some sympathy for Regina. Plus, I
thought that Regina had plenty of depth to her at that point in the series.
Levana, on the other hand, lacks depth and is constantly acting so coldhearted,
self-centered and flat-out evil throughout the book, that the reader is never
really given a chance to feel all that sorry for Levana or truly like her.
I get that Levana’s sister,
Channary, was physically and emotionally abusive towards her and is responsible
for the scars that she has on her face, but that doesn’t automatically mean
that the reader is going to feel sympathetic towards Levana; because the things
that Levana does in this book that don’t involve Channary in any way are pretty
horrible. I can’t help but wonder if Meyer was trying to portray Levana as a
sympathetic villain in this book. However, the thing I think people need to
remember is that there’s a big difference between a character having a
sympathetic backstory and actually being a sympathetic character.
Throughout the entire book,
Levana repeatedly thinks and acts in a very self-serving and evil manner,
especially when it comes to her relationship with Evret. After all, for years
she refused to let Evret see what she really looked like without all of her
glamours, and in the end she wasn’t all that genuinely loving towards him, in
my opinion. I honestly didn’t feel all that bad for her when Evret told her
that he had pretty much only agreed to marry her because he didn’t think that
she would take “No” for an answer. I think Evret was probably right about that.
After seeing/reading about everything that Levana did and thought throughout Fairest, I think it’s pretty safe to say
that she most likely wouldn’t have taken “No” for an answer. I also didn’t feel
all that bad for her when Evret told her that he had given her the gifts that
she had always treasured pretty much out of sympathy, rather than love for her.
Plus, it had apparently been his dead wife, Solstice’s, idea to give Levana one
of those gifts before she had died.
Personally, I feel like
Levana really came across as being driven by a very twisted desperation to be
loved in this book, which I think could have been interesting, if Meyer had
handled it better and Levana’s desperation to be loved wasn’t so twisted and
evil. Unfortunately, all of the bad things that Levana did in this book
ultimately outweigh any good or redeeming qualities and actions that she did.
As far I’m concerned, the fact that Levana plotted to kill Selene/Cinder when
she was just a baby by setting her nursery on fire just so she could be the
heir to the Lunar throne was especially evil on her part. If I’m being honest,
I can’t really think of any truly redeeming moment from the book that isn’t
somehow tainted and makes Levana a character that the reader could actually
like. Honestly, Levana is so lacking depth that I can’t even describe her as
the kind of character that I love to hate.
I mention that because
whenever there were moments where Levana showed some vulnerability and hints of
being a good person, they were always quickly ruined by Levana doing, thinking
or saying something evil and mean-spirited. I get that Levana is supposed to be
a villain, and this book is pretty much all about how she became the villain
that she is in the main series, but that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible for
somebody to write a book where the protagonist is a villain, and yet the reader
is still able to like them. A good example of this would be the Descendants novel, The Isle of the Lost by Melissa de la Cruz, which is about the children of various Disney villains. Since their parents are villains, the kids start
out at the beginning of the book thinking and acting the way you would probably
expect villains to act, but throughout the book they all became friends with
each other in their own weird way. I was still able to like all of the
characters and enjoy The Isle of the Lost
despite the fact that it was clear throughout the book that they were raised to
be villains like their parents. Sure, it might not necessarily be easy for a
writer to write a book where the protagonist is also the villain in the story
and the reader is still meant to like the protagonist, but I know it can be
done. Unfortunately, as far as I’m concerned, Meyer failed to do that with this
book.
This will probably seem like
a really odd and random book to compare Fairest
to, but as I was reading this book and thinking about how it impacted the way I
felt about Levana, I couldn’t help but think about the book, Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian, and how that book impacted the way that I look at Christian
Grey as a character. As I was reading that book, there were honestly times
where Christian didn’t seem like such a bad guy, and I actually kind of liked
him. Unfortunately, whenever that happened, E.L. James would always shoot
herself in the foot and ruin those moments very quickly by having Christian
think something that was rather creepy, or something that was rather elitist
and rude. Given how often E.L. James shot herself in the foot by ruining
moments where Christian kind of seemed likable throughout Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian, I’m really
surprised that she didn’t have to have both of her feet amputated.
As unlikable of a person as I
think Ana Steele from the Fifty Shades
books is, Ana’s annoying and idiotic behavior actually makes the books kind of
fun to read. A part of that is because E.L. James’ writing for the books is so
bad that they’re like an all you can eat buffet of material to make snarky
comments about, and to be fair, Ana did actually come across as being kind of
likable in Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as
Told by Christian. Putting my disappointment with Fairest aside, I think that Marissa Meyer is a really talented
writer, so I can’t bring myself to mock the hell out of this book.
While I didn’t like this
book very much at all, one thing that I did like about Fairest is that we got to see the origins of various things that
have played a huge role in the series. For example, the development of the
Letumosis plague, and the creation of Levana’s genetically-modified army that
Wolf ended up becoming a part of were both mentioned in the book. For that
reason, I’d say that Fairest is definitely
still worth reading.
All things considered, as
much as I hate to say it, Fairest:
Levana’s Story is definitely the worst out of all the Lunar Chronicles books that I’ve read at this point in time. This
book’s biggest problem is that while it does expand on Levana’s backstory, it doesn’t
add very much depth to the writing for Levana. Because Levana is seriously
lacking depth and complexity, both as a villain and as a character in general,
I don’t think that she’s a very interesting villain. The fact that she also
lacks any genuinely redeeming qualities made it very challenging for me to
become truly interested and invested in this book. Not being able to become
truly invested in a story and its characters is definitely a very bad thing to
have happen when it comes to any book.
That being said, my final
score for Fairest: Levana’s Story is
3 out of 10.
No comments :
Post a Comment