★★★★☆ Cress, by Marissa Meyer
The best love story in the Lunar Chronicles so far
Cress
Marissa Meyer
The best love story in the Lunar Chronicles so far
Cress is the third novel in Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles. The first, Cinder, was a retelling of Cinderella. The second, Scarlet, pretends to be a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, but it is not, really. This one, Cress, is meant to be a retelling of Rapunzel, and it pretty much is. Number four, Winter, is based on Snow White. Meyer based her books on the original Grimm stories. This is shown both by the stories she tells and by the book heading quotes -- each novel is divided into several books, and each book is introduced by a quote from the Grimm story (in English translation, of course).
Meyer moves the four stories to a postapocalyptic cyberpunk world in which Earth (governed by six nations that appear to get along peaceably) is in conflict with a nation on the moon whose inhabitants have magic powers. (Yes, it's magic, despite the technobabble about bioelectricity.) Their Queen, Levana, wants to rule the Earth, and looks likely to succeed (or would, if we didn't know that she's the Bad Guy in a series of Young Adult novels.) Meyer's most impressive accomplishment, to my mind, is merging these four stories (well, three, so far -- haven't yet seen what she does with Snow White) into a single coherent plot. It's not a simple plot, but it's very cleverly done. Because she starts out with Cinderella, then stirs in Red Riding Hood, and now Rapunzel, she assembles a complex story with a large cast of characters in a way that never feels overwhelming.
Each new novel introduces a new female main character along with her love interest. (This, I think, is the main reason she had to rewrite Red Riding Hood so extensively -- in the original Grimm version of the tale, there is exactly zero romance. Retellings of Red Riding Hood often fix that, as did Meyer. Meyer does it by having Red and the Wolf fall in love.)
In fact, Meyer stealthily started Rapunzel already in Scarlet. In Scarlet we got a new male character, Captain Thorne, assisting Cinder with a stolen Rampion class spaceship. Now, "rampion" in German is "Rapunzel". It is, apparently, a kind of salad green -- I wouldn't know a sprig of rampion if it bit me. But it is what the character Rapunzel is named for. Thorns also play a prominent role in Grimm's Rapunzel, so Captain Thorne's name is a big hint.
In Cress the part of Rapunzel is taken by a girl named after a different salad green, the title character Cress. The inaccessible tower in which classical Rapunzel is trapped is replaced by an equally inaccessible satellite.
Cress sits up there, all alone in her tower/satellite, and, as the publisher's blurb suggests, puts her skill as a hacker at the service of Queen Levana. However, we also saw her in Cinder, where she helped Cinder out. Thus we know that Cress is not loyal to Levana. The part of the Königssohn who will rescue her is taken by Captain Thorne. That is a little bit of a spoiler, but I think not really. His name, Thorne, gives it away if you read Rapunzel.
And this was, I thought, the best part of Cress. Thorne is a dashing but selfish wastrel. Cress is a lonely teenage girl who has lived in isolation all her life. Even without the fairy tale giving it away, you could easily guess that she would imagine herself to be in love with him, and that he would take advantage of her. But the story as it actually happens is much better than that. Because Cress believes Thorne to be better than he is, he becomes so.
The character who will stand in for Snow White is also introduced in Cress. Possibly also Prince Charming, though I have my doubts about the Prince Charming candidate who's been introduced to us. I guess I will find out. So, the cast is all (or mostly present) -- we are now ready for the thrilling battle with the Evil Queen!