Title: Cress (book 3 – The Lunar Chronicles)
Author: Marissa Meyer
Publisher: Macmillan Young Listeners
Cress by Marissa Meyer is a Rapunzel retelling. Cress is stuck on a satellite serving Queen Levana’s goals. She has nothing but her netscreens and a robot she has programmed for company.
Cinder and her friends embark on a rescue of Cress to free her from under Levana’s rule, and this would also allow Cress to help Cinder more freely without worrying she would be caught. The rescue mission goes south though, Scarlet is captured, and Captain Thorne crashes to Earth with Cress in the satelite.
Things become difficult after that. Thorne is severely injured in the crash, Cinder is still struggling with controlling her abilities, and they don’t know where Scarlet has been taken.
The love interest formed here, you can probably guess from my synopsis, is between Thorne and Cress. The struggles they face are quite interesting between Cress never having been to Earth and not knowing some of how we act, and Thorne’s injury. Yeah, things don’t look shiny. No, I will not be saying how he is injured. You will need to read to find out what his injury is.
Cinder struggles with Wolf since he loves Scarlet and knows what the Lunars will do with her on Luna. This knowledge scares him. Cinder also struggles with her own emotions. Scarlet is her friend, but Levana must be stopped, and their chance is approaching. There is no time to go off on a side journey to save Scarlet.
The plot keeps you moving from one issue to another, or just adds to the issues the characters face. You want to keep reading because you think there is no way for this to work out, but at the same time you know it will, but how the heck can everything be okay?
If you haven’t already, the series starts with Cinder, then continues with Scarlet. These books do need to be read in order as the story moves from one book to the next. If you’ve read Cinder and Scarlet, you are likely already hooked. If you enjoyed the first books, Cress doesn’t disappoint.