Winter REVIEW

Winter Review

RATING

10/10

SYNOPSIS

NON-SPOILER THOUGHTS

I LOVED this book. I loved everything about it. Cinder was the book that got me back into reading and I can’t believe that this series is over. After reading Winter, I officially loved every single one of the characters. I think that’s all I can say without spoiling anything.

SPOILERS UP AHEAD

Let’s start off by talking about our two new characters—Winter and Jacin. We were introduced to Jacin in Cress, but for some reason, I never pictured him as a teenager in that book. So, it was weird having to completely reimagine his character, but I quickly got used to it. I ended up really liking him. I still prefer Kai and Thorne to him, but I like him better than Wolf. I loved the scene where Jacin and Cinder have to drive that car across Luna! I also loved the very first scene with Jacin, when Levana put him on trial—but that was mostly due to Winter. I LOVE Winter. She’s so unique and different from any other character I’ve ever read about. I love how she’s slightly crazy and how she’s so kind and how she’s so out of place ALL the time. I loved Winter and Jacin together, when Jacin calls her trouble—it’s the most adorable thing! I could immediately ship them together, nothing felt insta-lovey with them. I think they’re my second favourite couple—behind Cinder and Kai.

Cinder OWNED this book. She was so badass and strong throughout the whole book! There were some things she did which were quite dumb—like going out into the town square even though she KNEW there were cameras everywhere—but I still think she was amazing! At first, I was quite skeptical of her becoming queen, but throughout this novel I found myself believing that she could be an AMAZING queen! The one part where I was scared for Cinder was when she jumped off the bridge of the castle and into the lake. I knew she wasn’t going to die, but the fact that she couldn’t properly use her cyborg parts terrified me, especially when she could get glamoured!

Speaking of glamours, Queen Levana was really terrifying in this book! For anyone who’s watched The Last Airbender, does Queen Levana not remind you of Azula? Especially towards the end when Cinder releases the video of her without her glamour…THAT WAS TERRIFYING. There was also that part where Levana made Kai do that PSA against Cinder and it KILLED me.

I remember reading Cinder and thinking that Torin was a Lunar and that he was going to betray Kai at some point. Because of that, I was always skeptical about his character—that is until Winter, of course. I LOVED Torin in this book. He was always looking out for Kai and he felt like such a strong father figure!

The royal wedding… Where do I begin? First of all, I loved how Kai tried to stab Levana; I know it was stupid, but it was SO worth it! When Levana brought Adri and Pearl out I was secretly hoping that she was going to kill them both, is that bad? Both of them were SO whiny throughout this WHOLE book. I honestly thought that Adri was going to kill Cinder when Levana ordered her to. Thank goodness that didn’t happen! Cinder taking over basically all of the soldiers in the room was probably one of my favourite parts of the book!

This book made me fall in love with Scarlet and Wolf. I wasn’t that big of a fan of those two characters until I read Winter. I just felt SO bad for them throughout this whole book! Scarlet’s trapped in a cage at the beginning of the novel and Wolf loses his mother AND he gets turned into a wolf soldier! WHY DID EVERYTHING GO WRONG FOR THEM? I was SO scared that Wolf was going to attack Scarlet during the revolution; I honestly thought either Scarlet or Wolf was going to die during the whole revolution.

Aimery Park. I hate him and he deserved to die the horrible death that he did.

Winter uses her powers and I kind of died a little inside. I mean, I’m glad that she did otherwise everyone would’ve died, but I can’t handle it! She stabbed him like 17 times! Technically Scarlet stabbed him but STILL. And then Winter goes crazy and I was so scared that we were going to end the book with her dying or something!

Cress was such a BAD ASS in this book! I loved how she tried so hard to act intimidating, but she is such a little cinnamon roll! Every scene where Cress tries to use a gun is PERFECTION!

Cress and Thorne! I was kind of confused at the beginning of the novel because I honestly thought they got together at the end of the third book. I just wanted them to be a couple in this book SO badly! I hated when Cress got mad at Thorne after he was manipulated by that Lunar girl! Cress, you know that humans are manipulated easily, why are you doing this? But they kissed after so I was happy!

The last fight scene with Levana—it was SCARY. I was preparing myself for someone to die! Thorne almost jumping off the bridge, Cress getting stabbed, Cinder getting stabbed! I knew in the back of my mind that no one was going to die, but I was still terrified!

The ending of this book made me tear up. Everything worked out so perfectly—some may say TOO perfectly, but I disagree. Everyone was happy and Cinder and Kai are going to get married! Let’s hope it doesn’t end like Kai’s last wedding!

Overall, I loved this book! I was the perfect end to an amazing series. I LOVE all of the characters, including the new ones, and their stories were all entertaining. My SINGLE complaint is that the world of Luna was VERY similar to the Hunger Games world, but I wouldn’t have noticed if no one had pointed it out. It’s definitely my favourite book of 2015!