Marissa Meyer’s The Lunar Chronicles is a retelling of the classical fairy tales.
Throughout the four books we followed Cinderella (Cinder), Little Red Riding Hood (Scarlet), Rapunzel (Cress) and finally Snow White (Winter).
The stories are set on a futuristic Earth where the planet is segregated into six nations set up after World War Four.
The first story starts with Cinder, a fifteen year old girl who lives in the New Beijing, the capital of The Eastern Commonwealth with her Step Mother (Linh Adri) and two Step sisters (Pearl and Peony).
As a child Cinder suffered terrible injuries in an accident and lost her parents as well as her left foot, hand and part of her face. Surgeons replaced the parts with cyborg implants leaving her feeling less than human. To her adoptive family she is more of a hindrance than a part of their family.
Cinder works in the market fixing old robots, droids and other mechanisms, one day a surprise visitor appears at her stool. The young Prince Kai brought his nurse droid to be repaired having heard that Cinder was the best. Thus starts an odd friendship.
From here on Cinder’s life starts to take on a whole new direction and slowly the girls lives start to collide.
So there is the basic plot and here is what we thought of the series:
Her: When I started reading this book, I knew it was something He would completely fall in love with. I was right 🙂 but in the same sense this so did I! It’s quite rare that I get drawn in and really invest myself and my emotions into novel so when it happens I have to hold on to it. This was one of those books.
There were parts sure that could be edited down and somethings that needed to speed up but what book doesn’t? There was also (small critique) the matter of the storylines being kinda similar e.g. Start the book knowing you will be introduced to one of the main women, meet her love interest, problem with her being with him, then conclusion. I’m simplifying it a lot so its really not that bad, but it did seem a bit repetitive with the relationships.
However what I found interesting was Marissa Meyer’s ability to make all the storylines intertwine in a fluid and not forced way. The characters were all very different and had their own unique voices and even though you kind of knew how the story was going to end (because they are all re-tellings anyway), there was some spanners thrown into the works. This is also a brilliant book for young girls as all the females don’t need a man to stand up or protect them! All in all it was a great series, with a unique twist on some old tales and some really colorful characters who will stick with me for a long time.
Him: From the start I think I was hooked, I loved Iko, the strange little android that had a faulty personality chip and who was Fan girl-ing over Prince Kai even before she met him. The stories aren’t faithful to the fairy tales but you get the gist of the tales within the storylines of each book and can put together who would be who in the original tales, but I’ll leave you to do that yourselves.
The characters are so well written, with strong arcs and developments. I can honestly say I have learnt a lot from Marissa Meyer, her writing style shows how a book can be long and the chapters still fly by as if they were only a couple of pages long.
Not since the last Harry Potter books have I eagerly awaited a release date as I did with Winter, last November and now we have started reading the .5 books that tell small stories of different characters, anything to keep the series alive.
I just hope that if/when this is made into a TV show/Movie they pay attention to the fan art and the suggestions for casting – maybe even our own Pinterest Board on the matter.
Overall I can’t rate this high enough, these are truly great books, worthy of the ‘Classic’ title and you should really, really go buy the entire set and read them this weekend.
Climbing Moss 