Cress
2014
- serie:the_lunar_chronicles
- teenage girls
- extraterrestrial beings
- juvenile fiction
- fiction
- cyborgs
- science fiction
- kings, queens, rulers
- queens
- kings and rulers
The story
In this third book in the Lunar Chronicles, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, now with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they're plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army. Their best hope lies with Cress, a girl imprisoned on a satellite since childhood who's only ever had her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker. Unfortunately, she's just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice. When a daring rescue of Cress goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a higher price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing prevent her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only hope the world has.
What it’s like
Bright, fast-moving science fiction with a fairy-tale lightness: the sensory world is a mix of sleek futuristic cities, gleaming spaceships, and the dim, screen-lit isolation of a satellite prison, with a warm romance threading through its action. Its prose is brisk and chatty, switching between alternating viewpoints, so it reads quickly and in short bursts. The tone is hopeful and adventurous, with a teen-novel sincerity about friendship, loyalty and first love, and a steady undercurrent of tension as the rescue goes wrong and the heroines are scattered across the stars. Violence is present but not graphic: there are shootouts, chases and a few injuries, handled briskly and without gore, and the romantic content stays chaste and sweet. Its arc follows a shy, sheltered girl discovering courage and a group of misfits learning to trust one another. It suits a long-haul flight, a weekend escape, or a reader who wants a cheerful space adventure with a gentle romance and a sense of being on a mission together. It is for readers who enjoy young-adult sci-fi, fairy-tale retellings, and lighthearted heroines.
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