Book Review: Fairest by Marissa Meyer

Fairest by Marissa Meyer
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Publication date: January 2015
Length: 6 hrs, 36 min
Source: Audiobook from publisher
For: Review
Series: Lunar Chronicles, Book 3.5?

 

Summary (from goodreads):

In this stunning bridge book between Cress and Winter in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles, Queen Levana’s story is finally told.

Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who is the fairest of them all?

Fans of the Lunar Chronicles know Queen Levana as a ruler who uses her “glamour” to gain power. But long before she crossed paths with Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress, Levana lived a very different story – a story that has never been told . . . until now.

Things I Liked:
I adore these retellings, though this one was a lot shorter and maybe not quite as complete a story as I would have liked.  I guess it's more like a novella.  It doesn't actually retell the whole Snow White story (as I assume Winter will be more along those lines), but the story behind the evil queen of that tale.  I felt very sorry for Levana throughout the book, and I found myself very sad at the choices she made. I listened to this on audio, and I thought the narrator, Rebecca Soler, was good but not great.  I also own a hard copy, cause I'm like that. I am excited to get to the next book (only a few weeks)!

Things I Didn't Like:
Too short :).  I found the narrator's voice was really great at young girls tones, but her male voices were...not good.  It sounded like a teenage girl's diary read aloud.  Which, I guess it kind of was.

Read-alikes:
Start with Cinder by Marissa Meyer

BOOK CONTENT RATINGS:
s-factor: none

mrg-factor: X
a bit

v-factor: ->

Overall rating: ****

If you buy through my Amazon linkage, I will get a very small percentage