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Welcome to the next book 1 of a series! I seem to be starting several right now; I’m going to need to step up how I categorize them on this blog so you can track a particular series even if I don’t review one right after the other. The Lunar Chronicles is a welcome addition to my growing series family.

I will start with a small note: I usually have zero patience for adaptations. Writing a story about Cinderella or using Sense and Sensibility really offers you the choice of being truly new and different or just slapping on a coat of paint and calling it “new and edgy” (while the rest of us roll our eyes). To use such a familiar or famous foundation for your plot requires innovation or ingenuity to the point that we know the story we’re being told but it’s different enough that we’re not constantly irritated by the author’s laziness.

Marissa Meyer sets her book in China. This change alone brings a breath of fresh air to the story. We meet Cinder, a cyborg that was adopted by her family in the midst of a war, and the father does pass away like the Cinderella story, but he was not her father. She lives with her stepmother (which is an odd term to use so they intermingle it with legal guardian) and two sisters, the younger of which is actually her friend.

This is also in a future where there has been a 4th World War and a colony has formed on the moon. So there is the Earthen Alliance and the Lunar Kingdom, and the Lunar Kingdom is pressing for marriage to the Emperor of the Eastern Commonwealth or Earth may face war with Luna. People from the moon also possess the ability to alter the biology of others in order to force them to do their bidding. Not quite magic, but close enough and it’s a very real threat to regular humans.

I absolutely adored this book. It did so many things very well and you want to keep reading to find out how things turn out. There is a lot of suspense, and you have to remind yourself “hey dummy, this is just Cinderella, you know how it ends” to calm your heart and continue. This book has everything: a plague, space, love, royalty, underdogs, rebellion, pluck, all set in a world we know and recognize.

This book was published in 2012, and I feel the urge to apologize for taking so long to get around to reading it. Lunar Chronicles, welcome to Angry Angel Books, we’ll be spending some time together. 🙂

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