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mweir710's review
5.0
This series is AMAZING. By far my favorite series that I will reread time and time again. The retelling of so many fairytales is unique and attention-grabbing and Meyer is able to cohesively bring each book together, building a world and turmoil that pulled me in, stressed me out (in a good way), and made me feel all the feels.
ineffigy's review
4.0
I really loved the entire series. It was amazing how the author incorporated bits and parts of the original, classic fairy tales into this dystopian series. Although the writing and everything else was good, it didn't really draw me in and intrigue me too much.
riverlasol's review
5.0
For a change, I am going to be reviewing a series in its entirety in just one blog post. I can remember seeing the covers for this series of books and always wondering about what secrets were hidden beneath them. A Glass shoe, a red cape… what did these things represent? After some time, I read the synopsis and realized that they were one of my favorite types of stories: fairy-tale re-tellings. I have always loved these types of stories because they have predictable points, but can also completely surprise you, which is exactly what these books did. Warning: Spoilers are included. You can read the first book review and then you’ll probably want to stop since there are spoilers for the rest of the series.
Series: The Lunar Chronicles
Titles: Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, Winter
Author: Marissa Meyer
Age Group: Teens
Cinder is a cyborg. Scarlet is a farm girl. Cress has been imprisoned on a lonesome satellite for too long. Winter is the Lunar Princess. Each girl takes turns to tell their story of bringing peace between their two planets.
Cinder, based off Cinderella, tells of a cyborg girl who fixes the prince’s robot. Then, when Cinder’s stepsister Peony gets the plague, Cinder is put into a testing program to help find a cure. Prince Kai begins to fall for her and she must fight the feelings she also feels. Meanwhile, tensions between Earth and Luna are growing.
Scarlet is based off Little Red Riding Hood. This girl meets Wolf, a street fighter, who tries to help her find her grandmother who is missing. Wolf’s loyalties are constantly tested between helping her and working for his lunar gang. Soon, Scarlet teams up with Cinder and her small group of rebels.
Next there is a retelling of Rapunzel: Cress. When Cress finally escapes her satellite with the aid of Carswell Thorne, she becomes entwined in Cinder’s plans to thwart the Lunar Queen. The Queen is trying to force a marriage alliance on Prince Kai, something that they cannot let happen.
The final book, Winter, is a twist on Snow White. Winter is the beautiful Princess of Luna. She loves her guard Jacin, something of which the Queen would never approve. When the others arrive to overthrow Levania, Winter takes lots of risks to help them succeed. To complicate the plot further, Winter’s mental health declines throughout the book. All Lunars can use glamour to make them appear prettier to others. However, Winter has always refused to use it, which causes Lunars to have issues. Throughout the book, Winter starts to almost go insane, hallucinating at some points. Although she may have some mental issues, they weren’t the focus of the book. The book was a wonderful ending to the series.
I would recommend this series because it was quite fun to read. The plot was simple, but also complicated in a hard to explain way. Some parts were easy to predict, but others were quite surprising.
Happy Reading!
Mayah XO
Copyright 2017
This is an old review from my blog libraryinmymind.com. For more reviews that are more recent, visit the URL in my profile.
Series: The Lunar Chronicles
Titles: Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, Winter
Author: Marissa Meyer
Age Group: Teens
Cinder is a cyborg. Scarlet is a farm girl. Cress has been imprisoned on a lonesome satellite for too long. Winter is the Lunar Princess. Each girl takes turns to tell their story of bringing peace between their two planets.
Cinder, based off Cinderella, tells of a cyborg girl who fixes the prince’s robot. Then, when Cinder’s stepsister Peony gets the plague, Cinder is put into a testing program to help find a cure. Prince Kai begins to fall for her and she must fight the feelings she also feels. Meanwhile, tensions between Earth and Luna are growing.
Scarlet is based off Little Red Riding Hood. This girl meets Wolf, a street fighter, who tries to help her find her grandmother who is missing. Wolf’s loyalties are constantly tested between helping her and working for his lunar gang. Soon, Scarlet teams up with Cinder and her small group of rebels.
Next there is a retelling of Rapunzel: Cress. When Cress finally escapes her satellite with the aid of Carswell Thorne, she becomes entwined in Cinder’s plans to thwart the Lunar Queen. The Queen is trying to force a marriage alliance on Prince Kai, something that they cannot let happen.
The final book, Winter, is a twist on Snow White. Winter is the beautiful Princess of Luna. She loves her guard Jacin, something of which the Queen would never approve. When the others arrive to overthrow Levania, Winter takes lots of risks to help them succeed. To complicate the plot further, Winter’s mental health declines throughout the book. All Lunars can use glamour to make them appear prettier to others. However, Winter has always refused to use it, which causes Lunars to have issues. Throughout the book, Winter starts to almost go insane, hallucinating at some points. Although she may have some mental issues, they weren’t the focus of the book. The book was a wonderful ending to the series.
I would recommend this series because it was quite fun to read. The plot was simple, but also complicated in a hard to explain way. Some parts were easy to predict, but others were quite surprising.
Happy Reading!
Mayah XO
Copyright 2017
This is an old review from my blog libraryinmymind.com. For more reviews that are more recent, visit the URL in my profile.
makeemmagic's review
5.0
There are just so many amazing things about the Lunar Chronicles. The characters are diverse, well-rounded, relatable, and just amazingly written. They have depth and each one is important to the over all story. I love that there are four strong, amazing, woman leads who are all different from one another but all share the characteristic of independence. The story flows so well and doesn't have any slow or dead parts through all four books. The plot is intriguing and engaging as well as wildly imaginative and creative. It's a highly addictive story and has made its way to the top of my favorites list.
lunaralignment's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Content Warnings
Minor: Ableism
emmylou5's review
3.0
Five stars for how Meyer turned the classic princess stories into sci-fi exploits; the way she twisted the stories to fit her world were really clever. (Brownie points for figuring out a way to make Cinderella's actual name Cinder and not Ella.)
Definitely worth reading once.
That being said, the romance was a bit overdone, especially considering their circumstances (emotional relationships with a teen crush you just met should not be a priority during a war). I kind of wish that Wolf had been an older guy (like Red's long lost uncle) instead of a romantic interest. And Cress was way too young for her "prince."
Definitely worth reading once.
That being said, the romance was a bit overdone, especially considering their circumstances (emotional relationships with a teen crush you just met should not be a priority during a war). I kind of wish that Wolf had been an older guy (like Red's long lost uncle) instead of a romantic interest. And Cress was way too young for her "prince."
skysbookchat's review
5.0
I was introduced to this Author via a fellow Booktuber on YouTube and fell into the story head first, curious to know what kind of world I would be submerged into.
For starters I ended up reading Queen Levana's story first and learned later that, I read it out of order. However, with that said i am so glad that I did do that because it made the rest of the story make just that much for sense. The biggest part of the story is how everyone deals with the Queen and how much shes hated by various people and how shes this evil being. Now had I not read her story first I may have had a completely different view and perspective as I read through the series.
With having read her story first, it gave me the fundamentals about the Queen that I needed to know and that set the scene for the rest of the book series, and therefore for anyone who hasn't picked this series up yet, Id recommend starting with her story first.
I really enjoyed each book as it compared with a known fairy tale princess we have all come to know, Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel and Little Red Riding hood, mixed with other various surprises that pop up as the stories went on. I found myself easily drawn into each and every part of the series, including last but not least Stars Above which was a nice short way of wrapping up the events for each of the characters within the story. Its nice to able to know what happened to all of your favorite characters after a major situation and Stars Above delivered that nicely.
This book series is another one of those that I listened to as an Audio book, which i loved because it was like listening to a movie and which leads me to believe that as long as they didn't cut to many corners, they would make a great movie series!!
5 Star read for the entire series!!
malima's review
5.0
Judging from the fun of reading them, this series of books definitely deserves these five stars. This series has a big cast of main characters without confusing the reader due to them being gradually introduced, a few at a time, and all of them, protagonists and love interests alike are interesting and, what is especially important, very different characters. Obviously that means you don't relate to all of them alike but they are still very interesting and have some kind of relationship or other which makes us care about all of them, at least in connection to our personal favourites.
The way the fairytales are incorporated, closely, more loosely or even subverted, is one of my favourite tropes very well-done.
My only critique is that it is very heteronormative. With such a big cast you'd expect at least one person to not be hetero, but even the female representing android is into men and men only.
The way the fairytales are incorporated, closely, more loosely or even subverted, is one of my favourite tropes very well-done.
My only critique is that it is very heteronormative. With such a big cast you'd expect at least one person to not be hetero, but even the female representing android is into men and men only.
luvnadiak's review
5.0
Each individual book is okay. They definitely can’t be read alone without noticing some plot holes or missing details, but bingeing all of these books is probably one of the best decisions I’ve made this week. If you’re going to read this series you have to read them together. After reading Cinder I was impressed but not completely invested in the story but by the fourth book I started having dream about the books. I finished all four in less than 3 days, they’re a pretty easy read. Meyers wrote a great twist to classic fairy tales. I hope they make them into movies too!
brie_reads_'s review
5.0
This was such an amazing series!!! I loved every book written!!! The characters stories and love stories were written very well.