“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 …