Fairest by Marissa Meyer

Hey, guys. It's Lisa and this week I'll be reviewing Fairest by Marissa Meyer. So, if you don't know, this is the prequel book to her Lunar Chronicles series, those books being Cinder, Scarlet and Cress. I absolutely love those books but I wasn't even expecting to. The series is basically a set of fairy tale re-tellings that all intertwine. It's also set in the future and has cyborgs and robots and it's SO GOOD. This novella is about the main antagonist, Queen Levana, and her back story. Really quickly, I just want you guys to know that this book isn't necessary for the series as a whole and you don't have to read it before reading the rest of the series.

So this book was really short. I don't even think it was 300 pages. So for how long it was, I have to give this book credit. It gave a lot of insight to Levana's character that makes her much more dynamic. In the regular books we don't know much about her. I mean, we get a few hints in terms of motivation and her past with her sister but we don't get the full story about it. This is actually interesting because it is only Levana herself who knows the story in its entirety. It makes her much more human and I actually felt for her in the end. It is a good example of there being more than meets the eye when it comes to people. This book does make me think of her differently, but not to the point of making me love her or convince me that she shouldn't be stopped.

I do feel as though  some of it was rushed or that we didn't get as much detail as we should have gotten in some areas. I think that since it spanned her life from when she was sixteen to almost when the series actually begins there was too much ground to cover with such a short book. I also thought that in terms of relationships, there could have been more emotion, Not to say that there wasn't any, but most of it came from Levana, not the other person be it her sister or love interest, both of which I feel were very flat characters.

I think this book is interesting and it without a doubt adds to Levana's character but as a book itself, it lacks character depth for the rest of the characters and it felt rushed at some points. I did feel for her, but my overall opinion of Levana didn't change much. Now, this book was released this year so it should still be fairly expensive so I have to say that if you could wait for the price to drop or, like me, you can find it super cheap at a thrift store (only 5 dollars!) go for it, otherwise, don't spend twenty dollars on a 300 page prequel that doesn't play much into the main series. It's good, but not twenty dollars good. 3.5 out of 5 stars.