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author, book, book reviews, books, characters, cinder, Cinder by Marissa Meyer, cress, Epic Fantasy, Fairytale retelling, fantasy, fiction, Ice Like Fire, Ice Like Fire by Sara Raasch, literature, Lunar Chronicles, magic, magic system, Marissa Meyer, novel, plot, read, reader, review, Sara Raasch, Scarlett, sci-fi, science fiction, snow like ashes, Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch, stories, story, who dies in cinder winter, who dies in lunar chronicles winter, who dies in winter, winter by Marissa Meyer, winter cinder spoilers, winter spoilers, world building, write, writer, writing, young adult
Genre: Science Fiction, Young Adult, Fairytale Retelling
Pages: 827
Point of View: Third Person (Winter, Jacin, Cinder, Kai, Cress, Thorn, Scarlet, Wolf, Lavana, Iko, and one more)
Released: November 10th 2015
Series: Cinder 4
Predictability: 5 out of 5 (Where 1 is totally unpredictable and 5 is I knew what was going to happen way ahead of time.)
Source: Library
My Rating: 7/10 Stars
My Summary:
Winter is the beautiful princess of Luna. Since she refuses to use her Lunar powers of deception, she’s slowly losing her mind.
Cinder and her friends are on their way to Luna to stop the evil Queen Levana once and for all.
Spoiler free review! (Even if you haven’t read Cinder) You will be warned before the tiniest of spoilers!
Click here to find out who dies in Winter! (This obviously has spoilers!)
My Review:
I am the oddball. Again. Everyone loved this book. Except me. I LOVED this series! It’s one of my favorites! I had such high expectations for this book! I was disappointed.
The Good:
It was nice to finally see Luna. The moon and the domed cites were cool! And the crazy Lunar fashions which incorporated their Illusion abilities.
I wasn’t sure if I’d like Winter based on her part in Cress. I was worried about the crazy thing, but I found myself wanting to get back to her parts! I especially enjoyed her banter with Jacin!
Iko got to narrate!!! It was great!! I need more! How about a whole Iko book, okay?
The Bad:
I know Snow White is the Fairest of them all, but it got annoying how often we were told. Winter is so so pretty. Her scars only make her prettier.
I read this 800 page book quickly, but it did feel a touch long. Some sections could’ve been tightened up a bit. (Like Kai’s parts. They were just boring.)
This series has been predictable, but it’s just been the major plot points. In this one almost everything was predictable! It felt like the author was just going through the motions to me.
The writing just wasn’t as good and the plot got repetitive.
If you want to go into this book blind, skip to the conclusion! (Small Spoilers!)
Which couple is going to be separated next, so they can be reunited and have a moment?
There were quite a few romantic moments. Maybe it’s because I just read a Rowell book, but none of them were that amazing. Big romantic scene and I’m all ‘meh, okay.’
Some previously smart characters acted idiotically! Example:
Your friend is fighting someone with mind control powers, you’re easily controlled, so what do you do? Go to ‘help’ of course! *facepalm*
It wasn’t only stupid good guys:
Levana left her top secret research center unlocked and virtually unguarded. Seriously?!
I am mostly mad about what she did to one of the characters! I was so angry with the book I set it aside for the day. I couldn’t believe she would do that! I could rant all day about how that ruined this book, but I won’t. (Click here to find out what I mean. Spoilers!)
Conclusion:
I’m glad I read Winter and it was a quick enough read, but it wasn’t great or amazing like I hoped. Iko’s first POV chapter was terrific! And there were a few good moments, (especially between Winter and Jacin) But it wasn’t half as good as the other books! They were just so fantastic! With some really great lines! This one? Not so much. It just fell flat for me.
What books are you wishing for for Christmas?
I asked for Winter, Magnus Chase, and the Copper Gauntlet. I obviously couldn’t wait to read Winter. (Oops!)
Woven Magic Books 
yeah I saw a few reviews about this one and the reviewers weren’t that happy about it. I still need to read book 2.
I’ve only seen one other reviewer who didn’t like Winter. I’m glad I’m not alone. Yes, Scarlet and Cress are both great!
I’m so excited to read this one, I so need to pick the series back up, I only read book one and then a novella, I’m so behind!
Scarlet and Cress are both good. I really liked Cress. I still haven’t read the novella. I own Fairest though.
I’m on the same boat with you on this one Molly! Winter didn’t turn out to be what I anticipated – actually I take that back, there was a scene in particular that affected my rating altogether which in turn threw me in limbo. I’m hoping to wrap up my review by today, but I loved everything you shared here. I too was furious with what Marissa Meyer did to —- 😉
Yay! I’m not the only one! I’ll have to see if you’ve written your review yet. There were some good parts, but overall it just wasn’t that great. Thank you! Now I’m curious which scene.
I have read book 1, I tried listen to book 2 but gave up cos the audio kept on skipping, I should read it instead
That stinks that the audio skipped in Scarlet. I think you’ll like it. It’s still predictable, but Scarlet is so spunky!
Thanks for the spoiler-free review. The opinions I’ve seen so far have been either LOVED IT! or HATED IT! so it’s great to see something in the middle. I’ll be honest, I’m not rushing out to get this one, but at some point I do want to read it since I’ve read all the books and it wouldn’t make sense not to continue in order to find out how the series ends 🙂
I hate it when I get spoiled ahead of time. Yes I am in the middle. I really liked some parts, but really disliked others. (Mostly I just hated one part) Yeah, you have to find out how everything turns out! I was so excited for Winter too..
So, I didn’t read the part that you told me not to read 😀 Because I haven’t even read Cress yet, oopsie? I am actually kind of glad that you weren’t like, flailing all over about it, because seemingly EVERYONE is in love with it, and that’s weird to me. I liked the first two books, but like you said in your predictability scale, they were absolutely 5s. So I had to assume this one will be too. Which, I guess is okay, but it also doesn’t make me want to run right out and read it either. Bonus is, it looks pretty on the shelf, so there’s that 😉 Fabulous review, so refreshing to read a new non-flails, and I am glad that you still liked it!
I’m glad I was careful not to put any Cress spoilers in there then. There’s no real spoilers, just a couple of hints, but I’d rather go into this sort of book blind. Haha! Cress might be my favorite of the series! Yeah, everyone loves it so much. Some parts were good, but overall it was not a four star sort of book. (If I did those sorts of ratings it would be a 3 or a 3 1/2) This one took the predictability thing way too far! The covers are so pretty! Thank you. I wanted to do a flails review. I guess I saved my flailing for Six of Crows.
I’ve been seeing about this book everywhere, but I haven’t read the series yet. One I want to get around to. I’m looking forward to getting the second Game of Thrones book for Xmas, so that I can keep reading them uninterrupted. 😀
Game of Thrones is definitely a series to read back to back. If he ever finishes book six I’ll have to do a major reread! Winter is everywhere! The series is really good even if I was disappointed by this one. It’s predictable, but fun. I hope you like it. Good luck with your Game of Thrones reading!
If he ever finishes…. yes, I am kind of hoping that by the time I’ve made it through the current ones that will be finished. I may be hoping for too much. 😀
Haha yeah It think that’s probably optimistic thinking. He was supposed to finish it this year originally.
Hmmm… This is not my favourite series (I’ve only read the first and second books… and that was enough for me). The reaction to this fourth book is really interesting, though; I’ve been reading quite a few of the reviews that are starting to come in. People either seem to really love it or they aren’t happy with some of the author’s choices.
I loved this series! But unfortunately not this book. I think the third, Cress was my favorite. I’ve read almost all loved it reviews. I’m definitely the odd ball. This one just wasn’t as good.
It seems like you still liked the book but were still a bit disappointed because not everything panned out too well. I am looking forward to reading it because well, it is the end of a series that I love. But I’m also pretty nervous because what if I don’t like it. I have it, but I haven’t started to read it yet and I think that is the reason why I haven’t xD