'Scarlet' by Marissa Meyer: Mel's Review

Title: Scarlet

Series: The Lunar Chronicles #2

By: Marissa Meyer

Genre: YA Dystopian/Fairy Tale Retellings

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. 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.

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"Cinder" by Marissa Meyer: Review

Cinder

The Lunar Chronicles Book #1 

by Marissa Meyer

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.

Cinder is the first book in The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. Meyer took a very well known tale and modernized it, adding in a few fantastic twists to make it her very own. To say it's unique would be a vast understatement in my opinion. Cinder is a superb reading experience from beginning to end.

The story is told in the third person perspective and follows both Cinder, our main character and Kai, the prince of New Beijing. I love when we get to delve into the heads of different characters in a book and this was no exception.  Cinder and Kai are both dynamic and interesting characters to behold and they kept me more than entertained as the story went on. 

Cinder is a truly unique character in the young adult genre. How many cyborgs do you read about? She was my first and I could not help but admire her as I followed her story. People  in Cinder's world seem to think that because she's a cyborg she doesn't have feelings but that couldn't be further from the truth. Cinder is deeply loyal, brave, sweet, smart, and spunky; she is more human in her feelings than most of the 'normal' people in her life. Then we have Kai. Yep, he's a prince and he is most definitely charming but there is so much more to him than that.  He is genuine and selfless and so many other lovely qualities that I could just keep going on and on. What I like most about his character, though, is that he acts like a regular person. He doesn't expect special treatment, he doesn't look down his nose at people. He is extremely lovable. 

This book was amazing from start to finish; fast paced, thrilling and addictive. I was completely sucked in from the beginning. I read it in a day; barely putting my kindle down and ignoring my husband's attempts to interact with me. There were a few twists thrown in that made me gasp aloud and when the end came I was left wanting more. I cannot wait to read the next installment, Scarlet which is due out on February 5, 2013. 

My Rating: 

If you'd like to listen to a clip from Cinder, here is Chapter 1 courtesy of Macmillan Audiobooks!

Marissa Meyer lives in Tacoma, Washington, with her husband and their two cats. In addition to her slight obsession with books and writing, she's big on road-tripping, wine-tasting, and hunting for antiques.

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Event: Fierce Reads Tour, with Ann Aguirre, Elizabeth Fama, Lish McBride, and Marissa Meyer,

When The Tattered Cover does book signings, they never do them scattered throughout the year. Or, at least, they never do this with authors I'm familiar with. Not even a week after seeing Ellen Hopkins there, on September 13th, I was back for the Fierce Reads Tour on September 19th. I left my wallet at home this time-- I've spent enough money on books lately, as is...

I've never read anything but Ann, Beth, Lish or Marissa when I found out about the signing, but that didn't stop me from going. A book signing is just an excuse to buy more books, in my opinion. ;) 

Surprisingly enough, I was there early. Wow. I meandered around the store for a few minutes, read a bit, added more books to my list, and then, finally, I got a REALLY good seat. Which, since I'm always there all of thirty seconds before the authors arrive, is rare for me. The ladies were already present and seated, and discussing amongst themselves-- It's easy to tell they're all friends, which made this signing even more fun.

Marissa Meyer

Marissa, author of Cinder, was adorable. She revealed she got started writing by posting fanfictions on Sailor Moon (so glad I'm not the only one who watched that show when I was little...), and began to get the idea for Cinder while entering a contest. Out of the options given, Marissa wrote a story that was, basically, "A sci-fi version of Puss In Boots". Later, she found out only two people had entered that contest, and she didn't win. But she liked her thought, so she continued on, and eventually, Cinder was born! (Yay!)

Lish McBride

Did you you know Lish wrote Hold Me Closer, Necromancer so she could get her masters degree? I didn't either. Can you imagine? Hitting up your teachers with a horror story with a necromancer/burger flipper and a talking head being a major role? Lish admitted she had a lot of push-back, but she fought for Sam to be her character, even though her teacher insisted her selected genre was 'crap' and 'no one' reads it. *ahem* 

"I eventually had to go and get a New York Times best seller list and show her. 'Oh, look! Mystery, thriller, thriller, romance, mystery, thriller, YA, YA, thriller, oh, there, one of your genre...' And she was genuinely shocked about this! I was like, 'Do you live under a rock?" ~Lish (paraphrased, I'm sure I screwed it up. Derp.)

Lish was hilarious, and I cannot wait to get into Sam's story.

Elizabeth Fama

Elizabeth was a doll. Very soft spoken and comfortable with her surroundings, she got me VERY excited by telling us that while it has an innocent looking mermaid on the cover, Monstrous Beauty is actually quite "dark and tragic". I won't lie, I did a fist pump at this, and I'm sure this weirded several people out, but I really don't care. The dark stuff is my favorite. She told us the last thing she wrote was a book for a Write-Off with her son. The judges being an unbiased college friend (who called tie), herself (who voted her son), her son (who voted her), and her husband... Who voted her son. Queue the "Oooooh's" and giggles from the audience. She is currently reading her sons, and while "the grammar is a mess", the story is insane. I kind of want to read it....hehe

Ann Aguirre

Ann was probably the chipper-est person I have ever encountered. She was telling us of her obsession with zombies, which I've never been a massive fan of, and even reenacted a scene from a trailer she saw. For the life of me I cannot remember the name of the movie, but I really want to. The trailer alone sounds hilarious, and just from her description, I kind of want to see it. My first zombie flick, oh boy...

Lana (me!) and Ann Aguirre

When I got up to the signing line (which turned into a mad rush near the end, I might add), Beth had a notebook with her, for fans to sign their name and emails in if they wished. As I was doing so, I heard the person behind me (obviously) begin talking to Elizabeth as I was talking to Ann (who likes my hair, EEP!). I was expecting to meet four authors, and I met five.

"Hi! I'm gonna be with you guys tomorrow- I'm Jessica Brody."

Jessica Brody. You know her- She wrote The Karma Club, My Life Undecided, 52 Reasons to Hate My Father...? You know who I mean. Needless to say, I, grace in action, nearly fell over my book bag. After getting a picture with Ann (who was awesome, thank you), I told Jessica I was a huge fan, and she was kind enough to take a picture with me. Yay, proof! 

Lana (me!) and Jessica Brody

The event was FANTASTIC and I'm so happy I went! I will have to start on ALL of these books soon (and you all know you'll get my opinions on them, sooner or later). So much fun!