Bookish Thoughts

The final book in Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles was everything I wanted it to be and more. Not that I wanted much from it beyond everyone getting their happy ending. Which I fully expected to happen. It's a fairy tale, after all, and what good is a fairy tale if it doesn't end "happily ever after"? But it was the road to the happily ever after that really impressed me. The book acknowledges what a difficult task it will be for a bunch of teenagers and young adults to overthrown a queen and end her tyrannical reign. It doesn't seek easy answers, though there are a fair number of happy coincidences. The book relies on the populace being ready for an uprising, and makes use of overwhelming numbers against the queen's mind control powers. The ending was nicely realistic, too. Queen Selene neé Cinder doesn't have much experience running a nation, and it shows. She relies heavily on advisers, lays all her cards on the table in negotiations, and immed...

One of my first encounters with Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles series was a review of this book, the prequel novella. I'd been strongly considering diving in at that point, but the review, whose opinion I tend to agree with, hated this book. So I backed off. For about a week, at which point Sarah started reading the series and fell in love with it. Which was all I needed to get back on board. Still, I was a bit worried heading into this book. I shouldn't have been. I actually loved it so much that I'm reconsidering how I view the reviewer who hated it. The story follows Levana, the evil stepmother queen of the story proper, and her rise to power. Levana is evil, and has always been evil. But villains never think they're villains. Levanna grew up spoiled and sheltered in a family without love. Her parents were both openly having affairs. Her sister was even more cruel than her. Add in Levana's supernatural manipulation abilities, and there was really no ot...

The third book of The Lunar Chronicles brings Rapunzel into the group of fairy-tale heroines going up against the wicked queen Levana. Though she's named Cress (short for Crescent Moon) in this book. True to the science fiction setting, she's been trapped in a satellite orbiting the Earth for the past seven years. She's used that time to hone both her hacking skills and her imagination, and so she joins up as one of the more naive yet skilled allies. This book was a lot of fun. It's thoroughly predictable, both because I'm familiar with the fairy tale and because it's a tad formulaic. But despite knowing what was coming, I had a ton of fun reading this. The action starts right off the bat, with Cress joining our known band almost immediately. This was more satisfying than the last book, which kept Cinder and Scarlet separate until the very end. The characters get to hang out in new configurations, which keeps everything fresh and fun. My only g...

The second book in The Lunar Chronicles twists the story of Little Red Riding Hood into Meyer's futuristic world. But it does this while continuing to follow Cinder's adventures as she escapes from jail and plots her next course and Emperor Kai's political problems. I would have liked for Scarlet and Cinder to meet up a little earlier, but this is still a fun and thrilling adventure that I enjoyed even more than the first one. I like the modifications Meyer made to the story, connecting Scarlet's grandmother to Cinder's past so there would be a reason for both girls to go looking for her. Scarlet is smart and practical and slow to trust, but the devious wold eventually wins her over anyway. I almost started trusting Wolf, even though I knew he would eventually betray Scarlet. That's what the wolf does. But he's more complicated than simple bad guy here, and that makes for a fun and interesting love interest for Scarlet. Meyer does an excell...

I've been meaning to get around to the Lunar Chronicles for a while now. Then Sarah read and loved them, and that pushed me over the edge. The first book,  Cinder , is a wonderful retelling of Cinderella, set in the distant future. Cinder is a cyborg, property of her stepmother and sole breadwinner for the family. All she really wants is to escape her life. But just as she starts to figure out how to do that, she gets caught up in much larger events . This story is incredibly well constructed. It's a classic fairy-tale, so you'll know many of the basic plot points going in. Cinder has an evil stepmother. There's a ball and a fancy dress and a prince. But there are some fun twists, too. My favorite is that Cinder ends up being her own fairy godmother, repairing an ancient car that she uses to get to the ball. She also loses her entire foot at said ball, rather than just her show, because her foot is robotic and doesn't fit very well besides. The series itself wea...