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A review by brittanica_bold
Fairest by Marissa Meyer
5.0
I love a good villain backstory. I especially love watching the villain go from a normal person through the series of events that cause them to snap and become the terrible character we know.
While reading Fairest, Levana's backstory in The Lunar Chronicles, I was hit with more sympathy for Levana than I thought I would be. We meet her as a young girl having to pick up the pieces of being royalty when her sister Channary would rather be off partying than dealing with her role as Queen. We see the good intent in Levana, with her wanting to make the right decisions for her planet and wanting to be the best ruler for all of their citizens. But slowly, we see her being pushed by her sister, isolated with no friends or family, and making one bad decision after another. A character who starts with good intensions slow drifts off into unforgiveable territory, coming to a head with the events we've all read about in the first three books of the Lunar Chronicles.
I also find it very interesting that Marissa Meyer has presented Levana and Cinder in rather parallel circumstances, both having been through the same devastating "accident" and then being raised in a rather isolated manner. Are Cinder and Levana really two sides of the same coin?
I feel bad for Levana and I pity her, but at the same time, her decisions were her own and lead to the monster we see represented in the first three books. For her bad deeds, I cannot like or forgive her, but for her unfortunate beginning, I can sympathize with her. That is excellent character building.
4.5 Stars from this Lunartic!
While reading Fairest, Levana's backstory in The Lunar Chronicles, I was hit with more sympathy for Levana than I thought I would be. We meet her as a young girl having to pick up the pieces of being royalty when her sister Channary would rather be off partying than dealing with her role as Queen. We see the good intent in Levana, with her wanting to make the right decisions for her planet and wanting to be the best ruler for all of their citizens. But slowly, we see her being pushed by her sister, isolated with no friends or family, and making one bad decision after another. A character who starts with good intensions slow drifts off into unforgiveable territory, coming to a head with the events we've all read about in the first three books of the Lunar Chronicles.
I also find it very interesting that Marissa Meyer has presented Levana and Cinder in rather parallel circumstances, both having been through the same devastating "accident" and then being raised in a rather isolated manner. Are Cinder and Levana really two sides of the same coin?
I feel bad for Levana and I pity her, but at the same time, her decisions were her own and lead to the monster we see represented in the first three books. For her bad deeds, I cannot like or forgive her, but for her unfortunate beginning, I can sympathize with her. That is excellent character building.
4.5 Stars from this Lunartic!