REVIEW: Stars Above by Marissa Meyer

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fairy Tale Retelling
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Publication Date:February 2, 2016
Formats Available: Kindle, Paperback, Hardcover, Audio

The enchantment continues…

The universe of the Lunar Chronicles holds stories–and secrets–that are wondrous, vicious, and romantic. How did Cinder first arrive in New Beijing? How did the brooding soldier, Wolf, transform from young man to killer? When did Princess Winter and the palace guard, Jacin, realize their destinies?

With six stories–five of which have never before been published–and an exclusive never-before-seen excerpt from Marissa Meyer’s novel Heartless, about the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, Stars Above is essential for fans of the best-selling and beloved Lunar Chronicles.

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The Little Android: A retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid,” set in the world of The Lunar Chronicles.

Glitches: In this prequel to Cinder, we see the results of the plague play out, and the emotional toll it takes on Cinder. Something that may, or may not, be a glitch….

The Queen’s Army: In this prequel to Scarlet, we’re introduced to the army Queen Levana is building, and one soldier in particular who will do anything to keep from becoming the monster they want him to be.

Carswell’s Guide to Being Lucky: Thirteen-year-old Carswell Thorne has big plans involving a Rampion spaceship and a no-return trip out of Los Angeles.

The Keeper: A prequel to the Lunar Chronicles, showing a young Scarlet and how Princess Selene came into the care of Michelle Benoit.

After Sunshine Passes By: In this prequel to Cress, we see how a nine-year-old Cress ended up alone on a satellite, spying on Earth for Luna.

The Princess and the Guard: In this prequel to Winter, we see a game called The Princess

The Mechanic: In this prequel to Cinder, we see Kai and Cinder’s first meeting from Kai’s perspective.

Something Old, Something New: In this epilogue to Winter, friends gather for the wedding of the century…

MY RATING:    

This collection of vignettes is a perfect end to the Lunar Chronicles. While most of the sections fill in the backstory gaps rather than introduce new information, it was entertaining and heartwarming to see the story played out from different perspectives. ‘The Little Android” was an insanely creative adaption of “The Little Mermaid,” and was probably my favorite part of the entire collection. The last story–“Something Old, Something New”–is the ending we were all hoping for Cinder and the gang. If you enjoyed Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter, be sure to give this one a read. You won’t regret it! I enjoyed it so much more than Fairest.

 

 

REVIEW: Fairest by Marissa Meyer

 

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fairy Tale Retelling
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Publication Date: January 27, 2015
Formats Available: Kindle, Paperback, Hardcover, Audio

Summary:

Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who is the fairest of them all?

Fals of the Lunar Chronicles know Queen Levana as a ruler who uses her “glamour” to gain power. But long before she crossed paths with Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress, Levana lived a very different story–a story that has never been told . . . until now. 

Marissa Meyer spins yet another unforgettable tale about love and war, deceit and death. This extraordinary book includes full-color art and an excerpt from Winter, the next book in the Lunar Chronicles series. 

MY RATING:   

True Rating: 3.5 

I wasn’t aware of Fairest when I initially read The Lunar Chronicles, so instead of reading it between Cress and Winteras suggested, I read it a few months after I finished the series. This novella is well-written, as is everything that Marissa Meyer puts out, and it did a great job of filling in the story gaps I’d noticed between the third and fourth main novels, but I can’t help but wonder if it was really necessary. There isn’t a lot of new information presented here, mostly just details of events strongly hinted at in the other books.

I am impressed, however, with how Meyer is able to handle such a complex character. Given our current cultural tendency to create sympathetic villains, I was pleased to see that while we do see Levana’s vulnerabilities and doubts inFairest, we don’t for one second forget how crazy evil she is. Has she been through Hell? Yes, absolutely–but that doesn’t justify any of the Hell she creates for other people.

Through this novella, Meyer sets up a juxtaposition between Levana and Cinder, which is very similar to what J.K. Rowling did with Voldemort and Harry in the later Harry Potter books. Both characters have suffered greatly at the hands of family (and stepfamily), and they share the same bloodline known for harshness and cruelty. Fairest shows more clearly that it is the characters’ choices, not what happens to them, that defines who they are. Levana chooses to embrace bitterness and hate. Cinder fights back. This is an important distinction that makes the end of Winter that much more meaningful.

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Check out my reviews of the other Lunar Chronicles books!

Top 5 Wednesday: Authors I’d Want To Meet at BookCon

Top 5 Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam. You get a new topic every Wednesday, and you list your Top 5 books related to that topic. If you’d like to take part, join the Goodreads group, and add your name to the list of bloggers & booktubers!

BookCon is coming up soon, in less than two weeks! Unfortunately, I won’t be attending this year–silly jobs and responsibilities–but this week’s T5W topic gives me the opportunity to think about who I’d try to meet if I were going. The list of participating authors can be found here.

Ann M. Martin

As a child and preteen, I tore through all the BSC books our local library had to offer. I loved all of the characters, but thanks to my chronic shyness and my toxic love affair with junk food, I connected with Mary Anne and Claudia the most. My favorite books were the super specials like Baby-Sitters on Board!, Baby-Sitters’ Summer Vacation, Baby-Sitters’ Island Adventure, and New York, New York! I loved these because, unlike the regular series, these books featured chapters from several different points of view. If I were going to BookCon this year, I would try my hardest to meet Ms. Martin and thank her for writing the BSC books. They helped shape my formative years, and I’m crossing my fingers for at least one daughter so I can relive the wonder of reading them through her!

Marissa Meyer

I’m a fairly new fan of Marissa Meyer’s work, having only read her fantastic series The Lunar Chronicles this past winter. I still need to read Fairest and Stars Above, both of which are painfully waiting for me to finish up my schoolwork for this semester so I can dive right in. I went through a dry spell in reading last year after I finished writing and publishing my second book in two years–nothing could hold my attention or give me the enjoyable escape I craved. Cinder and her friends, along with a few other books, were what brought me back to the light side. I would love to meet Ms. Meyer and thank her for bringing me out of the reading desert!

Tig Notaro

I’ve never actually read any of Tig Notaro’s writing, but I’ve heard her speak on a few episodes of This American Life, and I really enjoyed In A World…, a movie in which she played a supporting role. Her “comedy” routine in which she discusses a death in her family, a break up, and a then-recent cancer diagnosis, was poignant and heartbreaking, and her Taylor Dayne bit is pretty hilarious! I’d love to get a chance to meet her.

Veronica Roth

 

I’m not a fan of the Divergent series–sorry, just not part of the intended demographic!–but if I were lucky enough to be attending the 2016 BookCon, you bet I’d be trying my hardest to meet this amazing lady. She’s only two years older than me, and already she’s a New York Times Bestseller? That’s pretty inspiring.

Cassandra Clare

Likewise, I haven’t made my way to City of Bones and the other books in The Mortal Instruments series, but I’d love to meet Cassandra Clare. She’s on her way to becoming a household name.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s T5W! I’ll see you next time.

 

Review: Winter by Marissa Meyer

Winter by Marissa Meyer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Whew. File this one under “Rollercoaster, Emotional.”

Winter is much, much longer than the other books in this series. Thank goodness, because when I flipped the last digital page of Cress, the first thing that I said was, “Marissa has a lot of loose ends to tie up. She better deliver.”

Rest assured, she does. I tell you this now because if you haven’t finished Winter yet, or even picked it up, I want you to know there’s a happy ending. Well, a bittersweet one, perhaps, but satisfactory, nonetheless. There are several points within its pages which will make you question the truthfulness of this statement, but I promise, happiness is coming.

Winter is our delightful spacey interpretation of the beloved Snow White. She is mentioned only a handful of times and only introduced at the very end of Cress, but as you might be able to guess, she plays a large role in the overarching story. Winter is Queen Levana’s stepdaughter and largely lives as she pleases in the palace at Artemisia, but Levana is cruel to her as she is to everyone, and Winter has the scars to prove it. Even so, she is still easily the most beautiful Lunar of them all.

When Scarlet first meets Winter, she is stunned to learn that Winter’s beauty is not a product of her Lunar glamouring powers–in fact, Winter has not used her glamour at all since she was twelve years old, when she realized that it was evil to trick and manipulate others with her gift.

If you’ve read the other books in this series, you won’t be surprised to learn that this withholding makes Winter a little . . . well, crazy. She combats it as best she can, but slowly and surely, her madness grows until it defines her almost as much as her beauty.

I don’t want to say much more about the content of the book for fear of spoiling things for you, but trust me, it’s the conclusion you’ve been hoping for. There are such positive messages here about individual autonomy, the sanctity of life, human exceptionalism, personal responsibility, the nature of love, and systems of government that are fair and just. Cinder’s decisions toward the end of the novel make her what Katniss Everdeen should have been. In fact, it makes me that much more angry about how the concluding events of Mockingjay went down.

In short: Buy these books. Read these books. Message me so we can squeal about them together. In an age where subpar YA literature hogs most of the mainstream shelf space, The Lunar Chronicles stands out as a prime example of what the genre should and can be. I can’t wait to see what Marissa Meyer does next.

View all my reviews

Review: Cress by Marissa Meyer

Cress by Marissa Meyer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

And my obsession with The Lunar Chronicles continues.

About halfway through Cress, I realized it would be my favorite of the series. Having come out on the other side of Winter, I can definitively say that initial impression is correct.

Cress is a lovely, edgy sci-fi version of the classic Rapunzel. Taken from her parents at birth due to her lack of the Lunar gift, Cress was eventually enslaved by Levana’s head thaumaturge Sybil Mira and forced into cyber espionage against the Earthen Union. She’s spent seven years on a satellite completely, totally alone. As in, aside from Sybil’s occasional check-ins, she has no contact with anyone. Ever. When we meet her at the beginning of the story, she’s actually having a lively conversation with Little Sister, a computer program she created at the age of ten to keep her company.

Enter Cinder and the gang. Through a direct communication chip link, they manage to message Cress. Finally, her wildest dreams are coming true–she’s going to be rescued. She’s going to be around people other than her dreaded captor. And by none other than Carswell Thorne, the dashing convicted felon/fugitive who’s been aiding Cinder on her quest. Have we mentioned that Cress has done some serious net stalking and developed a mild crush serious obsession. But the rescue attempt couldn’t possibly go more wrong, and suddenly Cress and Thorne are stranded in the middle of nowhere in a pretty hopeless situation.

On its face, the story is that of the classic damsel in distress. In fact, I’m almost 99% sure that Cress actually uses that phrase more than once to describe herself. The brilliance here is that Meyer, in her typical style, twists the trope to make it more meaningful and original.

For one thing, Cress might be in distress, but she sure isn’t helpless. Her skills with computers and complicated problem-solving border on the genius, and there are several times in the series that everything would have been lost without her expertise. Even during her journey with Thorne, she has to become the de facto leader while he is incapacitated. She’s more than capable of taking care of herself, and yet she longs for Thorne to step up and take care of her, anyway.

Thorne’s development in this installment is quite possibly one of my favorite things about this series as a whole. I mentioned in my review of Scarlet that I delight in inherently evil creatures who desperately want to overcome their own nature. My delight in carefree cads slowly becoming thoughtful, considerate, compassionate men is equally fervent. We see Thorne transform from a caricature of the philandering criminal to a selfless, caring person. His character deepens and enriches. Honestly, my heart aches just thinking about how far he’s come.

(Yes, I know he’s fictional. And that is relevant how?)

On to the less gooey parts of the story. Meyer does a wonderful job conveying the horror of Levana’s kingdom and the seriousness of their predicament without being overly gross or gory. There are definitely some disturbing things that happen here, but nothing that make it inappropriate for the intended YA audience.

If you’re reading this review but you haven’t finished Winter–what are you waiting for?? Chop chop, little onion.

View all my reviews

Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy, Fairy Tale Adaptations
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Publication Date: January 3, 2012
Formats Available: Kindle, Hardcover

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 t 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 RATING:    

Oh my gosh, guys.

Oh. My. Gosh.

Let me start by saying this: this year’s reading experience has been mostly underwhelming. I didn’t get to do much at all for the first half of the year, for one thing–I was still with my own job, which was incredibly stressful and draining. Pair that with a hefty commute, and by the end of the day, it was all I could do to bang out a few sentences of the novel I was writing at the time. Reading was the last thing on my mind.

When I changed jobs over the summer, I suddenly had a lot more time and energy on my hands, so I threw myself back into reading. There were a few books here and there that I enjoyed, but I felt like I was going through the motions. I kept longing for a book–or dare I hope, an entire series–to sweep me off my feet, keep me up all night, and leave me in breathless anticipation for what happened next. Something infectious and emotional and creative and inventive and brilliant.

And then I found Cinder.

I’ve been toying with the idea of reading The Lunar Chronicles for a while. Cinder has been on my to-read list for at least a year, and has been chilling on my Kindle app for almost two months. I’m not sure what was holding me back. Maybe it was my hesitant attitude toward fairy tale adaptations, which seem to go wrong much more frequently than right. Maybe it was my growing skepticism of popular books, which almost never hold up to my expectations.

Whatever my aversion was, I’m glad I got over it. This book is excellent. Excellent.

Ms. Meyer’s writing is excellent in every way. Her construction in flawless, her  dialogue easy and natural, and her world-building adept. Her descriptions are so fluid I felt like I was watching the events unfold before me rather than reading them. Her characters were so developed I half expected them to walk right out of my Kindle. I laughed. I cried. I became fascinated with the beautiful, strange, cruel world that Ms. Meyer has created. I’m dying to know more.

I’m hoping that subsequent books will explain a little more about the history of the world–when did cyborgs become second-class citizens, and why? When did people migrate to the moon?

My only criticism: I saw the “big twist” at the end coming ten miles away. Literally, less than a third of the way through the book, I said, “I’ll bet X is what’s going to happen,” and I was right. I wish that had been handled a little more carefully so as to be a bigger surprise.

I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series!

 

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Marissa Meyer is a fangirl at heart, with a closet full of customers, a Harry Potter wand on her desk, and a Tuxedo Mask doll hanging from her rear view mirror. Han and Leia are still her OTP. She may or may not be a cyborg.

Marissa writes books for teens, including the NYT bestselling series, The Lunar Chronicles.

Follow her blog or sign up for her newsletter at http://www.marissameyer.com/