Review: The Lunar Chronicles

Title: Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, Winter

Author: Marissa Meyer

Narrator: Michael Kramer

Date completed: 1/23/2016

As much as I love fantasy novels, I’ve never been a huge fan of fairy tale retellings. However, this series is wonderfully crafted. Meyer did a fantastic job of taking just a few things from each fairy tale and working it into her own story arc and science fiction world.

The setting is an alternate future. The moon (Luna) was colonized by humans many centuries ago and the earth was divided into a few large unions/commonwealths after World War IV. The evil queen of Luna is the villain of the series and is trying to take over the earth through any means necessary (marriage alliance, disease, war, etc.) Here’s a little bit about each of the title characters:

Cinder - part cyborg mechanic living with her stepmother and stepsisters, but really is the long lost queen of Luna. Prince of the Commonwealth where she was raised falls in love with her. She leaves her cyborg leg at his ball.

Scarlet - Red-haired girl who wears a red hoodie. She grew up on a farm raised by her grandmother. Eventually falls in love with a mutant wolf/man

Cress - Trapped in a satellite her whole life doing the bidding of the Lunar Queen. No sharp objects around, so she has super long hair.

Winter - Slowly going insane stepdaughter of the Lunar queen. Friends with all the animals in the menagerie. Poisoned by her favorite apple candy.

I don’t want to spoil anything else in the books as I will probably be recommending this series to lots of people in the future. There’s all sorts of adventures and hijinks. The secondary characters are fun and endearing. I especially enjoyed the android, which due to a faulty personality chip, was a total fashionista, chatty, and raiding closets during their escapades.

The whole series is out now, so no excuses not to check it out!