Mirror, mirror, on the wall.
Who is the Fairest of them all?
Pure evil has a name, hides behind a mask of deceit, and uses her "glamour" to gain power. But who is Queen Levana? Long before she crossed paths with Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress in The Lunar Chronicles, Levana lived a very different story-a story that has never been told . . . until now.
New York Times -bestselling author Marissa Meyer reveals the story behind her fascinating villain in Fairest, an unforgettable tale about love and war, deceit and death. This extraordinary book includes a special full-color image of Levana's castle and an excerpt from Winter, the exciting conclusion to The Lunar Chronicles.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
32 of 34 people found the following review helpful.
Interesting expansion to the series
By Canadian eReader
Fairest - Levana’s Story by Marissa Meyer is a prequel to her fairytale reimagining series The Lunar Chronicles. It provides the backstory to series antagonist Queen Levana Blackburn of Luna. If you are new to The Lunar Chronicles, PLEASE don’t start with this book - go read Cinder, Scarlet and Cress and then come back to it. It will be more engaging in that way.This book is a very focussed character study of Queen Levana and how she turned from a naive, self absorbed young girl into the tyrant our heroines are trying to depose. There is little in the way of worldbuilding or major plot development. It remains mostly confined to the Lunar Royal Palace.What I likedCharacter development. This is the focus of the book and is excellently done. We follow Levana’s progression from a self absorbed, naive young girl to the vicious despot of the later books. I appreciated how each step and decision she took along that path was small and logical at the time but each developed her character as it turned out to be. I found her an interesting character, and at many points she gained my sympathy for what she went through.Character cameos. Many of the characters from the later books made cameo appearances as their younger selves. Even if they weren’t specifically named as such it was great fun to spot Cinder, Cress, Kai and other characters.Audiobook narration. Once again narration is provided by Rebecca Soler who did the narration for the other books in the series. She does a brilliant job of capturing the characters’ voices and I hope she continues for Winter, the final book in the series.What I didn’t likeVery expensive for such a short book. This book is really a novella - barely 272 pages or 6 hours and 36 minutes of audiobook - and yet is was priced comparatively expensively. I paid the price but a bit more resentfully than for other books.No chapter breaks. The book is written in one long narrative unbroken into chapters. Now, I am a working woman and I don’t have the luxury of settling down to long chunks of several hours’ reading. For me, the chapter breaks are valuable to give me a good place to stop.Not Whispersync for Voice compatible. In other words, the ebook and the audiobook didn’t sync. Combined with the lack of chapter breaks, it made switching between ebook and audiobook a very frustrating experience. If you’re only enjoying the book in one medium this won’t be an issue for you, but I did contribute to my lack of enjoyment.Less engaging protagonist. Yes, Levana is a fascinating character and yes, I enjoyed learning about her backstory. However, it cannot be said that she is immediately likeable or engaging in the way that Cinder, Scarlet and Cress are.Less humour. One of the fun parts of The Lunar Chronicles is the banter that is exchanged between our main characters. This was missing from Fairest - Levana’s Story. Thinking back, it’s because in this book we spend very little time with characters who actually like and respect each other. This book contains the first few chapters of Winter, which I listened to, including a scene on the Rampion and I immediately felt “yes, THIS is the Lunar Chronicles I know and love!"To summarise, while I enjoyed Fairest - Levana’s Story, for me it wasn’t a must-read part of The Lunar Chronicles. Certainly, it shouldn’t be the first book you read in the series. It does provide an interesting expansion to the series though.I gave Fairest - Levana’s Story 3.5 stars out of five.
44 of 55 people found the following review helpful.
Most fans will not be disappointed... Oh, and some other authors *cough*(Veronica Roth)*cough* could take a few notes..
By Amy Y.
I keep waiting for this series to bottom out and every time a new book comes out, here I am staying up until all hours reading it. This one def. deserved a review, though. I love the whole fairy-tale-retold genre- double that when it is done intelligently, triple that when it is done as sci-fi or speculative fiction. I have found the Lunar Chronicles to be thoroughly entertaining even though I originally started out reading them to my now-14-year-old daughter who is far too busy for such stuff and nonsense (*ohhhhh, mooooommmmmm*). I am so glad that this series continues to maintain its quality.I think I liked this book even more than the last because it is about Levana... she is just so evil, even in her own book when she is young and you want to like her and feel sorry for her because, well, evil people are evil for a reason! But, wow, she is SERIOUSLY EVIL! And she doesn't even get it. It would almost be sad. If she weren't so horribly rotten!I like the fact that there are still books I can share with my kids that I can find entertaining that they will enjoy, as well. (Uh, anyone realize how difficult that is these days?) I also think this author deserves an award for keeping all her facts relatively straight- I can't think of anything off-hand I could call her out on (that must be one complicated story board Ms. Meyer has going there).Anyway, to put it simply, if you like a little background on your villain, you should enjoy this. If you've enjoyed the other books in this series I'm guessing you'll like this, as well. And I don't want to give away any details but can I just say... karma! (Come on, you know it's coming!)If you just want a quickie about your favorite heroine, well, there might be a little of that in here, too. But I think there will be more about her in the next book(but I DO think she will be your favorite :) ).
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful.While I love M. Meyer's other books
By Dancersmom
While I love M.Meyer's other books, Fairest was a miss for me. I kept waiting for the magic to happen....It did not. Both Levana and her sister were completely unlike-able, making this a chore to finish. My daughter will not be reading this because of the sexual undertone that was not in the previous books.
