Before
I start talking about my thoughts on Winter,
I just wanted to say that since Winter
is the last book in the Lunar Chronicles
series, I’ll be discussing my thoughts on both the book Winter; as well as my thoughts on the series as a whole; that being
said, here are my thoughts on the book.
Right
off the bat, I have to say that as much as I’ve loved The Lunar Chronicles, Winter
is definitely my least favorite book in the main series. However, if you’re somebody
that prefers to lump Fairest: Levana’s
Story in with the main Lunar
Chronicles series (Cinder, Scarlet, Cress and Winter) when it
comes to how you would rank each of the books from your favorite book in the
series to your least favorite book in the series, Winter would be my second least favorite book in the series. While
there are quite a few things that I loved about this book, there are also a lot
of things about Winter that really
frustrated the hell out of me at times.
For
starters, the character Winter definitely ended up being my second least
favorite character in the series, behind Queen Levana. Don’t get me wrong, I
don’t outright hate the character Winter, but she really annoyed me quite a bit
throughout the book, and for the most part I just couldn’t get invested in the
relationship between Winter and Jacin, which is something I’ll discuss in more
detail later on in this review. When it comes to fictional characters that are
written as being mentally unstable, I’m definitely able to enjoy that kind of
character if they’re written in a way that’s genuinely compelling and
interesting if the writer is approaching it from a more serious angle. I can
also enjoy characters that are written as being mentally unstable if it’s done
more for the purposes of being entertaining and possibly somewhat comedic or
campy like soap operas will do sometimes. Kimberly Shaw from Melrose Place is a character that comes
to mind when it comes to writing characters that are supposed to be mentally
unstable this way.
While
Winter isn’t an altogether terrible character, she definitely annoyed me quite
a bit throughout the book, which is a shame, because I think that there are
aspects of the character that were pretty interesting and could have made her a
very compelling character if the writing for Winter had been handled
differently. Unfortunately, the way the character was written made the parts of
the book featuring her rather grating and eye roll inducing in my opinion.
That
being said, it’s honestly kind of hard for me to tell what exactly Marissa
Meyer was going for when it comes to the character Winter, and the way she’s
written. In some ways, Winter’s reluctance to use her lunar gift, and the way
she struggles with controlling the hallucinations that she has throughout the
book, because she refuses to use it reminded me a lot of Elsa from Frozen; and how she didn’t know how she could control her powers until the
end of the movie. The difference, however, is that I actually like Elsa,
whereas Winter just constantly annoyed me throughout the book. For the most
part, the parts of the book that featured Winter were honestly some of my absolute
least favorite parts of the book.
