- Release Date: January 27th 2015
- Genre: Sci-Fi/Space Drama
- Audiobook Hours: 6 hours and 36 minutes
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio
I’ve never DNFed an audiobook, but let me tell you Fairest came *this close*. It wasn’t so much that the book was bad it just didn’t have the heart or fun I’ve come to expect in this series. The plot threads and world-building elements that hold the series together started to unravel for me.
Fariest gives us a snapshot in the life of Levana as her sister Channary becomes Queen . The Lunars (or at least the aristocratic ones) are shown as cruel, jealous and vain. Levana and Channary are like the anti-Frozen sisters–with songs like “Do You Want To Build A Fire and Brutally Mutilate Someone” and “Love Is An Open Door. . . With Mind Control” and last but not least “Never (Never) Let It Go.”
The thing is that so far in the series we’ve spent very little time on the planet Luna, giving it somewhat of a mystique. This book waves this element away and plops us right into the world of the Lunar court like it’s not a big deal that we are there. We get very little world-building or understanding of life on Luna.
We know from the other books that Lunars have the Lunar gift, the ability to change their appearance with glamours and perform mind control. This gift is what causes a lot of the fear of Lunars on Earth but on Luna everyone can do it, it’s commonplace. Levana changes her appearance multiple times and people don’t know who she is. I don’t understand how this can be commonplace. How is there no anarchy? How does anyone know who anyone is? It’s just kind of hard to believe.
I also found the “wink wink nudge nudge” to characters and events in the series was a bit exhausting and took away from Levana’s story.
On the flip side I’m glad Meyer didn’t try to completely make Levana sympathetic, I think it’s fair to say there is some ambiguity of how much of Levana’s hardships are dropped on her and how much is her own doing.
I was glad to find this audiobook was actually 5 hours 33 minutes long and the rest was the first few chapters of Winter. Oddly enough I did like how well Fairest flowed into the first chapter of Winter. It sort of informs the way you see Levana in the opening scene, but that alone is not enough for me to recommend you to read it.
I never read novellas or prequels because I always get the sinking feeling they are published for the money. This one just didn’t sit well
1/2 of the blogging duo at Books and Sensibility, I have been blogging about and reviewing books since 2011. I read any and every genre, here on the blog I mostly review Fantasy, Adult Fiction, and Young Adult with a focus on audiobooks.