“Cress” by Marissa Meyer

Yay!  So often, with series, the energy of the first book cannot be sustained.  Not so with Meyer’s “Lunar Chronicles” which has tripled its “cast” in this third book and is still a fun page-turner with a nicely original spin on some very old stories (Fairy Tales in a Science Fiction future).  Cress, the newest character in the series, is, in some ways, more intriguing to me than Scarlet, the lead in the second novel.  Trapped in isolation, she is child, savant, and hopeless dreamer.  It is easy to like her amidst Cinder’s hardness and Scarlet’s pathos.  Other characters join the fray and one gets a sense of “Beauty and the Beast” meets “Star Wars” in this latest installment.  Meyer does a terrific job of balancing the paths of each character but maintaining enough forward momentum that you can’t wait until there is resolution.  Sadly, resolution will not be found here, as a fourth, yet-to-be published, book is on the horizon.  Nonetheless, some of my frustrations with hanging plotlines from the first book are resolved a bit, and there is some loss as well.  I can only hope that when all is said and done, Marissa Meyer will fulfill my need to read “And they lived happily ever after” as she wraps things up.  At the moment, that doesn’t seem likely, but this is a series that has defied expectations, time and time again.  Given how satisfying this book was, I do believe it can happen …

“Divergent” by Veronica Roth

Here’s for low expectations.  I went in thinking this was yet another pale “Hunger Games” rip-off, only to be pleasantly surprised.  It is Dystopian, and it does have a plucky, if not sometimes whiny and nearly indestructible heroine (think Jack Bauer).  There is a cute guy with a dark side and a fair number of predictable plotlines, but all that being said, I really liked it.  The book is well-written, the actual plot somewhat unique – unique enough that it did not feel “derivative” (as one of my students said) and the characters are well-rounded, complex enough to hold my interest.  The book is, as a whole, quite a page-turner.  It is easy to see the teen appeal – good girl goes bad, complete with dangerous stunts, black clothes and tattoos, but I never felt like Ms. Roth talks down to her readers.  A fairly young author herself, the voices come across as authentic, even as these teens struggle to figure out their role in life.  I liked it enough that I now want to see the movie, with images in my head strongly in place.  A warning for readers … it is violent.  There are a number of brawls that result in significant injury, and a sharp item gouged into one young man’s face.  These incidences are described in very specific detail.  With all books, readers can, and do, choose to breeze through sections that might disturb them, but like other Dystopic tales, it might be best to give a head’s up to younger readers.