Published: 27 January 2015 (print)/8 May 2017 (audio) 
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends/Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Pages: 272/5 hrs and 33 mins
Narrator: Rebecca Soler
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
★ ★ ★ ★ – 4 Stars
In this stunning bridge book between Cress and Winter in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles, Queen Levana’s story is finally told.
Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who is the fairest of them all?
Fans of the Lunar Chronicles know Queen Levana as a ruler who uses her “glamour” to gain power. But long before she crossed paths with Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress, Levana lived a very different story – a story that has never been told…until now.
This is a bridge book between Cress and Winter, books three and four in the Lunar Chronicles, and the story explores Levana’s childhood and how she became the ruler we know.
It was amazing to see her use of her powers and read about the normal Lunar life as natural and as every day. Given our only perspective before has been through Cinder and other character’s perspectives, it was great to be able to see the regular lives of Lunars and how their gift is used among the community. It also shows us how the events in her past affected who she’s become and all those references and secrets in the previous three books are answered and it was absolutely fabulous.
There is a hard line being balanced where you feel sorry for Levana and her life growing up, but at the same time you know that there are different paths she could have taken and different decisions being made. Narrative bias is also a key factor and it was intriguing to see Levana justify things to herself and how, while she is leaving out certain things, she does show the reader a darker side to herself, one that gives a glimpse at what she is truly capable and how the young girl in this story becomes the queen we see later on.
In showing us a younger Levana we also see a glimpse of the younger counterparts of other characters as well, those who lived in the palace with her. I enjoyed seeing the younger versions of the key characters, from babies to children and beyond. It wasn’t their story but through Levana’s perspective you can see how they circled her world and were in her life in different ways. This is also true for characters only mentioned such as Queen Channary or Winter’s father. It’s a great connection to the main books and connects the series together really well.
Levana is both a victim and a villain and having these conflicting emotions when we see such a one sided view of her previously was a bizarre feeling. Not to justify bad childhoods for being a terrible adult, but Meyer makes us see that there is a lot more to Levana’s story than it first appears and the trauma and pain she’s suffered were bound to have an effect on her one way or another.
The story is third person but Meyer gets us inside Levana’s head and we see everything she thinks and feels, a clever move on Meyer’s behalf. We’re able to see that she is shameless in her actions but she also shows a lot of passion and pride, even hopelessness and loss which are interesting choices. Ironically it humanises her and you see the malice within but also the girl starved of attention and love. I loved this story a lot, it was great to see the rise to power and the changes Levana makes, something we can see even as she edits herself and we can’t entirely trust her thoughts.
This definitely works to be read between books three and four, but it is something I came to after finishing the series and it gave me a reflective enjoyment about the events in Winter and the relationship Levana has with the characters I had fallen in love with.
You can purchase Fairest via the following
Wordery | Blackwell’s | Angus & Robertson
Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust | Audible
Welcome to Elsewhere. It is warm, with a breeze, and the beaches are marvellous. It’s quiet and peaceful. You can’t get sick or any older. Curious to see new paintings by Picasso? Swing by one of Elsewhere’s museums. Need to talk to someone about your problems? Stop by Marilyn Monroe’s psychiatric practice.
When Rini lands with a literal splash in the pond behind Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, the last thing she expects to find is that her mother, Sumi, died years before Rini was even conceived. But Rini can’t let Reality get in the way of her quest – not when she has an entire world to save! (Much more common than one would suppose.) If she can’t find a way to restore her mother, Rini will have more than a world to save: she will never have been born in the first place. And in a world without magic, she doesn’t have long before Reality notices her existence and washes her away. Good thing the student body is well-acquainted with quests… 
This new book is a clever way to introduce young readers to non-binary and gender-fluid people. As Ms. Reeves’ class produces a play about a farm, the entire class comes to understand about being true to who you are, as classmate Ari expresses their identity as they, which prompts Jacob to look more deeply about what it means to be who he is, and how others identify. Explaining the use of pronouns of one’s own choosing to kids, while all along reinforcing that an individual is much more layered and unique then how others may see him, her or them, is a developmentally important milestone to help foster respect of one’s self and one’s peers.
In this third book in the Lunar Chronicles, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, now with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army.
