Book Summary
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. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn't know about her grandmother or the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. 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.
Flo's Review
Posting this now, because for some reason I reviewing it on Goodreads, but not here:
One word for this book: intense. Whoa, kids! I had to let myself decompress before writing this review. Following the theme of the series, Marissa Meyer takes a fairy tale and makes it part of this story she is telling. Scarlet is the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Scarlet is a feisty redhead who usually sports a red hoodie. When her grandmother goes missing, she will do anything to find her -- and her one lead is a guy named Wolf. Again, the way Marissa translates the fairy tale into this story is just so creative. The Wolves, you guys! Daaang. (I was trying to find another way of saying "intense"!)Meanwhile, we are still following Cinder and Kai. We have the introduction of a new character -- Thorne. He is amazing. Thorne is so completely ridiculous that he is just a lot of fun to read. Marissa was still able to throw surprises my way, as I can think of at least one BIG thing that happened which I wasn't at all anticipating. The end of the story was quite -- wait for it -- intense, but it ended with an a definite action statement on Cinder's part. So this is what we are going to do. Onward to Cress!
Book Summary
In this third book in the Lunar Chronicles, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, now with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army.
Their best hope lies with Cress, a girl imprisoned on a satellite since childhood who's only ever had her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker. Unfortunately, she’s just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice. When a daring rescue of Cress goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing prevent her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only hope the world has.
Flo's Review
So, I enjoyed Cinder. I liked Scarlet, too, though I thought it was a little intense. But, you guys, I LOVED CRESS. I loved it! Starting with Cress herself: I love that she is so smart and so creative. At the beginning of the novel she sees herself as a damsel in distress who believes in fairy tale (ha! ha! There's some irony, for ya ;-) romance and happily ever. But when she is thrust -- literally -- in a new world she is strong and resolved. She stubbornly sees the good in people. I love that she tells herself stories, like, "I am an adventurer!" to give herself courage. This leads me to Thorne.
Thorne! I can't with this guy! He is literally a "character." He always made me laugh and shake my head and, legit, I describe him to others by saying, " I can't with him!" It was nice to get into his head a bit in this book and I really liked the hints of what we saw toward the end. I am looking forward to seeing how his and Cress' story develops in Winter.
Those two were the stand out characters for me. As for plot, I love how Marissa links the story so well across the four books. Things that were just little nuggets dropped into the previous books get fleshed out in later books in the series and the connectivity blows me away every time. Finally, I have to give props to the audiobook narrator Rebecca Soler. She is so good that at times it is quite hard to believe that it is the same person voicing all the parts.
So now I'm up to Winter. I'm a bit intimidated by the whole over 800 pages and approximately 22 hours of audio thing. But of course I'm going to dive in! Thanks to The Book Addict's Guide for hosting the #TLCReadAlong and getting me into this series!
