At first I was really reluctant to read this book. First off, I hate Levana… This should have been reason enough. Don’t get me wrong I love Marissa Meyer’s works, I even think Levana is one of the best fictional antagonist of all time! Levana was so greatly developed that really I just don’t want anything to do with her! I don’t want to comprehend the things she thought of or the things she’s feeling… everything about her! I don’t want to sympathize with her if ever it could get to that.

But the reader in me got the better of me. I felt that if I don’t read this part of the series, I’d be missing something, and that some part in Fairest might connect with something in Winter. And so I read it… Admittedly, I’m glad that I read it, to the point of maybe even relieved. It’s not a story that can make you change your mind about the character, but it is a way of understanding the character in depth. It didn’t change the way I thought about Levana – which is that she a psychotic b*itch – she’s worse than I thought.

Compared to Channary, Levana is better in some aspects. She is “nicer” but Channary was a great mother to Selene, which Levana was never good at with Winter. And I respect the fact that Levana is the best monarch Luna has ever had, because it’s undeniable that she is brilliant and uncanny, unlike her other family members that ruled before her.

I’m blown away with the love angle and how deeply the story is rooted to it. Levana falls inlove with a guard, Evret, but he’s married and has a baby on the way. Solstice, the wife, dies from delivering the baby, and that’s when Levana started getting ideas. I admit that it surprised me that an affair did not occur between Evret and Levana, and that she only started her move when Solstice died. Even raising Winter as a princess was surprising, but ofcourse it was all for Evret. But why kill him? What was the point? I hate it. He could have loved her if her head wasn’t in her royal ass all the time. He called her sweetheart, but I think it was so he wouldn’t have the mistake of calling her in any other name. But he did care about her, so there’s that.

Everything starts out as an “innocent” thing with Levana but blows out of proportion. She copies Solstice, imagining herself with Evret, then it became her permanent face. Wanting to be queen, her small thoughts on how to be one led to her murdering Selene, and finding a way to add more resources for Luna, she attacks earth with a deadly disease and soon after wages war on Earth. Her mind works in wonder. One thing’s for sure, it’s dark and twisted.

3 stars