Fairest

Fairest is the prequel novella in Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles, the young adult fairy tale science fiction series. While the main books in the series follow heroines based on Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White, Fairest takes a different approach. The novella is the origin story of the series antagonist, Queen Levana of Luna, the woman whose obsession with control over Earth and over her own appearance has driven the larger plot of the entire series.

The novella moves through the years of Levana’s youth and early adulthood. Her childhood as the younger sister of Crown Princess Channary, with the two sisters’ very different temperaments setting up the family dynamic that would shape Levana’s future. The traumatic event that left her physically scarred and that began the lifelong obsession with using her Lunar gift to project a glamour of beauty for everyone around her. The slow unfolding of her plans for the Lunar throne and for the eventual conquest of Earth that will be the central conflict of the main series. Her marriage to Channary’s husband after Channary’s death, and her difficult relationship with her young niece Selene who would later be revealed in the main series as the true heir to the Lunar throne.

Marissa Meyer takes a real risk in writing Fairest. Levana has been the unambiguous villain of the main series, and giving her an origin story that humanizes her without excusing what she has become is a difficult balance to strike. Meyer largely succeeds. The Levana of Fairest is recognizable as the queen the reader has met in earlier books, but her cruelty has roots in her own treatment by her family and in the trauma she has spent her life trying to deny. The result is a more morally complicated portrait than the main series alone could provide.

For longtime Lunar Chronicles fans, Fairest is essential. The reveals about Levana’s origins reframe many of her actions in the main novels and add depth to the eventual confrontation in Winter. For new readers, this is not the place to start. Begin with Cinder and read the main series in order before returning to the prequel.