Audiobook Review: Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3)

Author: Marissa Meyer

Narrator: Rebecca Soler

Audiobook Length: 15 hours 41 minutes

In this third book in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles series, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, with Scarlet and Wolf in tow.

Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and prevent her army from invading Earth. Their best hope lies with Cress, who has been trapped on a satellite since childhood with only her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker – unfortunately, she’s being forced to work for Queen Levana, and she’s just received orders to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice.

When a daring rescue goes awry, the group is splintered. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a higher price than she’d ever expected. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing prevent her marriage to Emperor Kai, especially the cyborg mechanic. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only hope the world has.

In this third installment of the Lunar Chronicles, a new main character, Crescent Moon (Cress) is introduced as a Rapunzel inspired retelling. Cress is a Lunar and is imprisoned on a satellite since childhood and works for Queen Levana. As she only has her computers for company, she spends her time hacking and spying on others. Levana’s new task for her is to locate Cinder and her group, who are on Carswell Thorne’s ship and creating a plan to overthrow Queen Levana. Meanwhile in New Beijing, Queen Levana is continuing to stop at nothing in order to marry Emperor Kai.

Cress secretly works to sabotage Levana while also having a secret crush on Carswell Throne. Eventually, Cress and Cinder’s group collide, and their stories become entangled with each other. Cress has the chance to finally meet Thorne when the two of them are thrown together in an unexpected situation. Their relationship slowly grows through each new obstacle they face. Cress is unsure of the world around her and is shy while Thorne is blind and can have Cress assistance at times. This creates a very cute situation between them, and I greatly enjoyed watching their relationship grow.

Cinder, Scarlet, and Wolf are also featured throughout this book. Scarlet and Wolf’s relationship continues to grow. Wolf, himself, though felt a little forgotten in this story. He seemed very essential in Scarlet, but his role was reduced a lot in Cress. It just seemed a sudden shift in his character, even though he is a necessary part of the group. Both Scarlet and Cinder continued to be enjoyable, and I loved the entire group working together, even if they were physically separate at times, as they try to plan to overthrow Levana.

Overall, the pacing of this story is great as it has a nice build up for the final installment, Winter. With multiple main characters, there were moments where there was more focus on some than others where I expected it to be a little more equal. Meyer does a great job continuing to give each of them a distinct voice, but I do wish there was a little more focus on some of them at times. Cress was an excellent addition to the group and her and Throne were sweet together. There is a nice ending in this story that nicely sets the series up for the finale and I cannot wait to see how it will all end!