In April, the library where I work had a Scholastic Book Fair, where I came across a series of books called The Lunar Chronicles. I was previously unaware of this series but was intrigued by the first book's cover. (Yes, I judged a book by its cover. Shame on me.) The first book is called Cinder, and the second book is called Scarlet. The series is written by Marissa Meyer and contains only these two books as of this post, with two more books set to be released in 2014 and 2015.
It seems like always before I have been late to the bandwagon, catching series once they've already been completed. (Harry Potter may be an exception to that. I may have suffered through the anticipation of waiting for book 7, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.) However, The Lunar Chronicles are still in the process of being written and released. I won't know what to do with myself, having to wait for the completion of the series! I finished the first two books, and I want to know what happens next.
Basically, Cinder is the classic Cinderella story, with a major spin. Cinder is a cyborg -mostly human, with some electronic modifications- and is living in New Beijing, the fictitious city that replaced Beijing after the fourth world war. The story takes place sometime in the future, where cyborgs, androids, and flying cars are all commonalities.The story sticks close enough to the Cinderella fairytale to make it recognizable as such, but it's also different enough to keep from being tired or played out. I figured out pretty early on how things were going to go down, for the most part, and that was a little disappointing. I am, after all, an adult reading books meant for children/teens, though. Plus, it didn't keep me from wanting to continue reading.
The characters are fairly well-developed. Meyer does a good job of letting the reader experience Cinder's emotions: her identity battle (Cyborg? Human? Neither?), her love for Peony, her friendship and affection toward Iko (her sassy android), and her hidden feelings for Prince Kai. She allows the reader to know the characters' feelings through her descriptions of them, without always using dialogue, which is difficult to achieve. It's easy to know how a character feels by making the character say it directly. Meyer does through her descriptions of the characters' actions.
Moving on to Scarlet, the second book introduces a new set of characters, and a new story similar to that of Little Red Riding Hood. I have to say, I was quite impressed with how well the characters from the two books are woven together in Scarlet. The characters aren't just dumped together awkwardly or in an obvious way that makes you go "duh." They are neatly blended together in a way that makes sense, so that after it's done, it paints an exciting picture of two stories that have become one intricate story. I was also impressed with Meyer's ability to keep a complicated story simple, since the interweaving of the two stories means two individual story lines in addition to the story line created by the combination of the original two. Also, neither Cinder's story or Scarlet's story is neglected in order to tell the other. It's a perfect balance of the two.
I won't go into much detail about Scarlet because I don't want to give anything from either book away. Of course, Scarlet is in search of her grandmother, as the classic story goes, and she meets Wolf along the way. Things aren't quite as simple as the well-known fairytale, though.
I look forward to reading the next book, Cress, once it is released in 2014, and I recommend these reads.
