I liked these backstories, they made me understand the characters even more, and appreciate their character development better. I recommend reading this after the actual series for sure, there’s definitely spoilers, and after Fairest if you want to fully understand Winter’s story. My favorite story was probably Thorne’s, but since I read Fairest a day or two ago Winters was also very interesting, as Levana’s perspective is fresh in my mind, and I also liked knowing why Winter stopped using her gift. It also made me understand how brave she is even more; that its not because of fear or disgust that she doesn’t use her gift, its vecause she understands the consequences and that its wrong. This might also be because I read Winter a while ago so I don’t remember her very detailed character perfectly. Scarlet’s story was alright, in the second book she does think about the past a lot so I already knew a lot. I did find the fact that Garan didn’t know who she was when he agreed interesting, as well as Scarlet’s grandmère’s feelings about Cinder. Cinder’s story I had already read, it was a bonus at the end of the first book, so nothing new there. The Little Android was alright, at first I thought it was Iko’s backstory but the time didn’t add up, and then she met Cinder, so obviously not. It was a bit heartbreaking despite the fact that I barely knew Star. Kai’s story was not really necessary for me to understand him but I still enjoyed it. I really liked Something Old, Something New because my guilty pleasure is when after defeating the villain the characters fix and clean things up, and that story was a lot of that. And I also liked seeing Iko and Thorne again (him especially, it was even better seeing his excitement about the shop after knowing how much he wanted it), and the story was also adorable and nostalgic. It had even more closure than I had already gotten, and gave me more time with the characters I love without feeling unnecessarily prolonged.

Also can I just say, Meyer is so good at dialogue? It’s very entertaining and embodies characters personalities very well.

“I wanted a quiet, intimate wedding, not a circus” Thorne leaned against the staircase rail. “It’s the first known Lunar-Earthen wedding in generations, the groom is a bioengineered wolf-human hybrid, and you invited the emperor of the Easter Commonwealth and the ex–Lunar Queen. What did you expect?”

Pages 336-327

I feel like when I read Heartless I could be able to predict what happens, because I know the original story and because I feel very familiar with Meyer’s writing style, but I probably won’t because her stories enrapture me and I’ll be too distracted to think of it on a meta level. The excerpt and the reviews make me think it will be heartbreaking, but since TLC wasn’t I don’t know how Marissa Meyer will do that.