Fairest – Levana’s Story by Marissa Meyer is a prequel to her fairytale reimagining series The Lunar Chronicles. It provides the backstory to series antagonist Queen Levana Blackburn of Luna. If you are new to The Lunar Chronicles, PLEASE don’t start with this book – go read Cinder, Scarlet and Cress and then come back to it. It will be more engaging in that way. This book is a very focussed character study of Queen Levana and how she turned from a naive, self absorbed young girl into the tyrant our heroines are trying to depose. There is little in the way of worldbuilding or major plot development. It remains mostly confined to the Lunar Royal Palace. What I liked Character development. This is the focus of the book and is excellently done. We follow Levana’s progression from a self absorbed, naive young girl to the vicious despot of the later books. I appreciated how each step and decision she took along that path was small and logical at the time but each developed her character as it turned out to be. I found her an interesting character, and at many points she gained my sympathy for what she went…