I recently read a book I feel so strongly about that I felt the need to dedicate an entire article to singing its praises so everybody can read this book because it is just that good.

Marissa Meyer is a fairly new young adult novelist that came on the scene a few years ago with her wildly popular Lunar Chronicles series. She combines sci-fi, fantasy, young adult and fairytale retellings to create truly unique works that are thoroughly enjoyable to read. I read all four books in the Lunar Chronicles series, plus all six of the novellas, and I enjoyed every single one of them. I thought her clever retellings of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and Snow White were really well done, and you all know I'm a sucker for all things sci-fi, so the fact that these retellings were set in space and included interstellar wars, travel, and conspiracies, and even came with really lovely romances on top of all of that, pretty much made this series everything I've ever wanted.

But this article is not about the Lunar Chronicles, as lovely as they were.

This review is for her latest novel, "Heartless." Once again, it is a fairytale retelling, this time offering us a glimpse into the world of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland." But this story is not a retelling of Alice's story, or the Mad Hatter's, or even the White Rabbit. No, this is a retelling of the little-known, always-ostracized Queen of Hearts, and it's unlike anything you've ever read before.

If you're at all familiar with Meyer's Lunar Chronicles, you'll recognize that with Queen Levana, Meyer introduced the premise for being able to write a sympathetic villain. But those skills were fully realized here in her novel "Heartless" with her portrayal of Catherine, the Queen of Hearts character. She introduced us to a shy, sweet young girl who dreamed of lemon trees and opening her own bakery, full of potential and the optimistic notion that if she tried hard enough, she could follow her dream. We followed her as she tried to please her mother, stay true to her friend and avoid upsetting the balance in her idyllic kingdom by hurting the king. We watched her fall in love, we watched her learn so much more about her own world than she could have ever thought possible. We watched her find her confidence to stand up for what she believed in, the courage to take her fate into her own hands and follow her heart.

And then we watched as Meyer destroyed her until nothing was left of that happy young girl.

My cousin once told me that it's easy to draw a pretty character, but it's very difficult to draw an ugly character; you have to be exceptionally talented to be able to pull off both. And now, I apply this concept to writing: it's extremely easy to write a sympathetic hero, who saves the day and gets the girl and wins the war. But it's incredibly difficult to write a villain, a truly evil villain who does unforgivable things, but is still beloved by the readers. And that's what Meyer did here.

She gave life and breath and face to a previously one dimensional character, the evil Queen of Hearts. I don't know about you guys, but when I watched the animated "Alice in Wonderland," I thought the Queen of Hearts was a mean old bag who wanted to hurt Alice for no reason. But Meyer tried to explore why the Queen of Hearts was so horrible, and she pulled it off WELL.

I believed Catherine was good once. And I understand why it went so wrong. Without spoiling the entirety of the novel, rest assured that I was rooting for her the entire time. And my heart bled when it all went so wrong. And I couldn't even blame her at the end; I couldn't blame the evil character she has become when she shut herself away from the world that had screwed her over so completely because Meyer painted such a vivid, such a poignant story of love, loss, and betrayal that Catherine could have murdered everybody in her kingdom in the end, and I still wouldn't have blamed her one bit.

And that's why this novel was so great, so important. That's why everyone should read this novel; because Meyer is the kind of author that makes you love the villain no matter what.