This is one of those reviews that are going to difficult to write. I absolutely love Marissa Meyers and The Lunar Chronicles. Sadly, I did not love Heartless. I really wanted to like this one. It had a cool concept from the blurb and with Marissa Meyer at the helm it should have been a slam dunk. However, this just ended up being a perfect storm of things I dislike. Maybe this works for other people but for me it just... didn't. 
 Let's get back to that perfect storm of dislike I mentioned. First and foremost our heroine, Catherine, is an intensely unlikeable character. I know she's supposed to be a tragic figure here but I just couldn't find a lot of sympathy. All she does is complain, think about food, and occasionally bake something. Her unhappiness with the unfair reality she lives in seems to be everyone else's fault but her own. She never stands up for herself and seems to constantly rely on outside sources to either help her out or hold her back. I understand that in Victorian society (P.S. I personally hate stories that take place in Victorian settings) there were strict limitations on what a woman could or couldn't do. Catherine is trapped in a world where her happiness seems to be always out of reach because the very things she wants are the exact things that society will not allow her to have. Keeping all that in mind, Catherine seems to think that she should be entitled to whatever she wants. She's very naive to think that the world owes her anything. She's never worked a day in her life and seems to think she will just adjust to a life of hard work easily. Her best friend, Mary Ann, is her maid and while Mary Ann is constantly seen working, Catherine never lifts a finger to help. Only when the story is about 75% of the way through did I start to find her compelling. Once she lost all hope and started to become cynical she finally became someone I would want to read about. It's sad that it took her losing all hope and everything she loves in order to become an interesting person. 
 I think the best way to describe Heartless would be the terms "frightfully dull." Nothing happened. 90% of the book was just people flittering about being insipid and sharing flirtations. There was a side plot about a Jabberwock that's attacking and eating people. A SIDE PLOT! That should have been the main story! Instead we just get to hear about an entitled girl getting told "no" a bunch of times. There's also a room temperature romance between Catherine and Jest, the court Joker. They have maybe gone out 4 or 5 times and they are in love. I know this is set in Victorian society but that still seems like a rather flimsy foundation. 
 It's hard going into a story where you already know the conclusion before reading the first sentence. It's the back story of the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. We know she will become vicious and blood thirsty. We know this is a tragedy. It's an interesting concept. The thing is... it's hard to get invested in the good things when you know it's only temporary. While reading this I was waiting for everything to fall into ruin because I already knew it would. Do you hope Catherine and Jest can be together and live happily ever after? Of course you do! But when you already know the outcome it makes everything just bittersweet. I'll finish this off with the one quote that I liked the best: 
 It is a dangerous thing to unbelieve something only because it frightens you.