Cinder (Lunar Chronicles #1) by: Marissa Meyer (2012)
387 pages
Genre: YA/Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Source: The Library
Purchase: Barnes and Noble | The Book Depository
Goodreads Summary: Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague
ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.
Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.
ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.
Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.
My Review: I really enjoy a well done fairy tell retelling and although slightly too weird for my tastes, Cinder didn’t disappoint. All of the characters are interesting and I enjoyed the setting. Cinder, a cyborg, is an interesting character that is easy to feel for, I mean she does have an evil stepmother and an evil stepsister and they treat her like crap, so who wouldn’t feel for this young girl? I love that Cinder has a built in lie detector, I would love that, or maybe I wouldn’t, but either way it is pretty neat. I love her friend/android Iko. I was intrigued by the prince and found him to be quite cute, and all the other minor characters were pretty nicely fleshed out as well. I enjoyed Cinder and have no problem recommending it to other fairy tale retelling fans out there, but I would warn them that it is pretty sci-fi, because I just wasn’t expecting the book to be so weird. Overall, Cinder was a fun read.
My Rating: 3.5/5
Scarlet (Lunar Chronicles #2) by: Marissa Meyer (2012)
454 pages
Genre: YA/Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Source: The Library
Purchase: Barnes and Noble | The Book Depository
Goodreads Summary: The fates of Cinder and Scarlet collide as a Lunar threat spreads across the Earth...Cinder, the cyborg mechanic, returns in the second thrilling installment of the bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She's trying to break out of prison—even though if she succeeds, she'll be the Commonwealth's most wanted fugitive.
Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit's grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn't know about her grandmother or the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother's whereabouts, she is loath to trust this stranger, but is inexplicably drawn to him, and he to her. As Scarlet and Wolf unravel one mystery, they encounter another when they meet Cinder. Now, all of them must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen Levana, who will do anything for the handsome Prince Kai to become her husband, her king, her prisoner.
My Review: Scarlet is even better than Cinder. I wasn’t a huge fan of Cinder, but I’m a huge fan of Scarlet. Part of the reason as to why I liked this book more than the first is because I was prepared for all the weirdness (people from the moon with magical powers, cyborgs, etc.) this time. Not to mention that I loved the new characters that we are introduced to in this second book in the Lunar Chronicles series. Thorne is a little smart ass devilishly handsome man, Wolf is a delicious bad boy incarnate, Scarlet is that strong female heroine I love in my books, and Cinder is also back. I love how Meyer wove the Little Red Ridding Hood fairy tale into this book, it was definitely unique. There was more adventure in Scarlet, which is a major plus for me. At first I was worried this book was going to be way too predictable, but I was proven wrong the more I kept reading, boy was I not disappointed. I enjoyed this book so much more than Cinder that I would recommend people read this series solely based off the awesomeness that is Scarlet. Scarlet has better characters, more adventure, better/less predictable twists, and like I mentioned earlier, the retelling of Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale was by far superior to the Cinderella one.
My Rating: 4.5/5
I really like the sound of this series, and it sounds like an almost perfect fit for me. I just need to borrow the books from my daughter -lol:) I actually really like the sound of Scarlet, and how you described how Meyer wove Little Red Ridding Hood fairy tale into it. That's one fairy tale you don't see too often re-imagined. wonderful mini-reviews, Kay. :)
ReplyDeleteYou should give it a try! You are totally right, I don't really come across Little Red Riding Hood retellings so I loved this one!
DeleteI liked Scarlet a lot better than Cinder too and I'm interested to see how the two stories will continue to weave together. The characters in Scarlet and the story itself just seemed a lot more exciting.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear I'm not alone. I agree 100%. Scarlet all around was just more exciting. :)
DeleteI didn't realize you hadn't read these before! I loved both of these and apparently Cress is even better than Scarlet (I am eagerly waiting for my pre-order). Maybe we can read Cress at the same time (if you had time to read it soon)? I think it comes out the 14th...
ReplyDeletethe 4th***
DeleteI did read Cinder a long time ago when it first came out, but I could barely remember it and just hadn't gotten around to reading Scarlet. I will put a hold on Cress at the library so I can get it asap! Then hopefully we will be reading it at least around the same time. (If Cress is better than Scarlet then I'm even more excited for it to come out!)
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