30 Day Book Challenge // Day 28: A Book with a Villain You Love

Day 28: A Book with a Villain You Love

Ah, heroes and villains. Whether it's fantasy or crime, thriller or dystopia, they give us the emotional connection to a story that allows us to root for the characters. 

As I'm a lover of fantasy fiction, there are a lot of books on my shelves with prominent villains. Finding one that I love, however, is more interesting. 

One villain that stood out to me was Levana from The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer.

Marissa Meyer is one of my favourite authors. She creates fantasy worlds far away from our reality that capture my imagination and heart. The characters are full of personality, and I always relate to them so strongly. 

Cinder, the first of the Lunar Chronicles series, was the first book I read by Meyer. It took me a little while t get into it, but once I did, I was hooked. I know these books are so popular, but for anybody who hasn't heard of it, this is the blurb for Cinder:

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth's fate hinges on one girl. . . .

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She's a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world's future.

With high-stakes action and a smart, resourceful heroine, Cinder is a Cinderella retelling that is at once classic and strikingly original.

Blurb taken from Goodreads.

I wasn't originally keen on the idea of a cyborg Cinderella, but as the book, and the series, began to take hold, I saw the power of it. One of the reasons this series was so great has to be the villain, Levana; the evil queen.

We get to know her more and more over the series, and she even inspired her own prequel, Fairest, which I've also read. In it, Meyer did a wonderful job of making us feel empathy for her, but at the same time ensuring that we still did not condone her actions. She's a really intriguing character that was built upon and built upon and built upon until, in the final book, Winter, we know her as intimately as we know our heroines. 

The reason this series is so successful is because the villain is so relatable, layered, and powerful in her own right. It's a great example of how villains are so important to a story. Love it!

If you've read the series and are interested in reading my full review, you can find it here.