Fairest (The Lunar Chronicles #3.5) by Marissa Meyer

Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who is the fairest of them all?

Fans of the Lunar Chronicles know Queen Levana as a ruler who uses her “glamour” to gain power. But long before she crossed paths with Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress, Levana lived a very different story – a story that has never been told . . . until now.

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Usually when I read books like, Fairest, I come away with a more sympathetic opinion towards the villain, but I don't know if I can say this is the case with Levana. There were moments when I felt sympathy and could almost understand why she did what she did, but then she would ruin the newly formed sentiment by doing something completely selfish and hypocritical that I found myself back at square one, thinking that she is just an awful queen to needs to be deposed. Her perceptions and understanding of the world were so off that it didn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to understand why she acted the way she did and made the decisions she made. Did Levana's story make me feel sorry for her? Yes, I had fleeting moments of sympathy, but in the end, this novel did little to change my opinion of her. I'm still #TeamCinder!

Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3) by Marissa Meyer

Even in the future, there are damsels in distress...

In the third installment of the Lunar chronicles, Cress, having risked everything to warn Cinder of Queen Levana's evil plan, has a slight problem. She's been imprisoned on a satellite since childhood and has only ever had her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress a great hacker. Unfortunately, she's just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice.

When a daring rescue of Cress involving Cinder, Captain Thorne, Scarlet, and Wolf goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes as a high price. Meanwhile, 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.

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Marissa Meyer continues to deliver stellar novel after novel. I continue to be impressed by how she weaves together so many story lines and characters, and yet manages to keep them all balanced and well developed. Cress is an interesting twist on the story of Rapunzel. I love that she’s a sheltered computer nerd. I loved that Carswell had a more starring role in this novel and think that he and Cress are adorable together. The story is a page turner and Marissa did a nice job of wrapping up some loose ends, while simultaneously setting the stage for what I anticipate to be an epic finale.

2016 Reading Challenge: A science-fiction novel

Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles #2) by Marissa Meyer

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.

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I really loved this novel. I enjoyed Cinder, but having the two parallel stories added another element that made it easy to fly through the pages. I loved how Marissa took the story of Little Red Riding Hood and put a unique twist on it. Scarlet is a fantastic character. I love her sass and independence. Wolf is intense, dangerous, and wild, which of course made for an exciting time as he and Scarlet got closer. It made me swoon a little to see how Wolf was tamed and softened by Scarlet, but never lost his edge. Carswell Thorne was great comic relief and his interactions with Cinder were fun to read. Marissa weaved the two story lines together beautifully and I love the motley crew of characters that is coming together. Scarlet is even better than Cinder and I’m excited to see what happens next. On to book three!

2016 Reading Challenge: A book based on a fairy tale

Bossypants by Tina Fey

In her acceptance speech for Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, Tina Fey announced that she was proud to make her home in "the 'not-real America'". It is perhaps that healthy sense of incongruity that makes the head writer, executive producer, and star of NBC's Emmy Award-winning 30 Rock such a cogent observer of the contemporary scene.

Bossypants, her entertaining new memoir, shows that strangeness has been her constant companion. Fey's stories about her childhood in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania are only appetizers for LOL forays into her college disasters, honeymoon catastrophes, and Saturday Night Live shenanigans. Most funny read of the month; the best possible weekend update.

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I find Tina Fey to be very funny and I thought Bossypants was an enjoyable read/listen. Not every author makes a good narrator for their book, but I thought Tina’s narration was well done. It made it feel like we were out for a drink at a bar and she was telling me the story. It was interesting to hear about some of the challenges Tina faced as a woman in a male dominated profession, and I was even able to relate to some of her experiences. Tina covers a wide range of topics in this memoir, from dealing with heartbreak, to learning how to be a producer, to motherhood. I thought the memoir was funny, insightful, and engaging.

2016 Reading Challenge: A book written by a comedian

Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #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.

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I have always loved fairy tales. Growing up in a Disney home, most of the movies and books I loved as a kid were fairy tales. As I grew up, I moved on to the original, and much less magical, versions of my favorite tales and fairy tale reimaginings. Even as an adult, I still enjoy fairy tale related mediums, such as the popular TV show, Once Upon a Time.

Cinderella has always been my favorite princess story and I have read/watched about every version I have come a cross. So naturally, when this Sci-Fi version came to my attention, I snatched it up at the Book Fair. Unfortunately, it’s been sitting on my self, not because I wasn’t excited to jump right in, but because like any other true book nerd, my to-read list is ever expanding and I just don’t have enough hours in the day (especially since I still have to work for a living...boo!).

While the essentials of the Cinderella story are there - mean stepmother, stepsisters, a prince, a ball - Cinder definitely puts a twist on the whole thing. Cinder is a mechanic and cyborg (she loses her foot instead of a shoe at the ball), whose companion is not friendly mice, but a friendly android named, Iko. There are also plenty of Sci-Fi elements injected into the story, which add another fun element. I liked Cinder as a character. She’s independent and little feisty, but still kind hearted. I also liked that the prince, Prince Kai, has his own story line and isn’t regulated to the sidelines like in other versions of Cinderella. 

This is probably the most action packed version of Cinderella that I have ever read and there are some fun twists in the plot that I am excited to see how they play out in the sequels. Overall, this was a very enjoyable read. 

2015 Reading Challenge: A popular author's first book

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. At the core of this rich, expansive, layered novel, Lauren Groff presents the story of one such marriage over the course of twenty-four years.

At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed. With stunning revelations and multiple threads, and in prose that is vibrantly alive and original, Groff delivers a deeply satisfying novel about love, art, creativity, and power that is unlike anything that has come before it. Profound, surprising, propulsive, and emotionally riveting, it stirs both the mind and the heart.

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The word I would use to describe this book is TOO (I know, it’s not an adjective...stay with me…).

This book:

• Was TOO verbose, almost to the point of distraction.
• Tried TOO hard to be something it’s not. The narrative attempted to imitate a classic novel, with its flowery descriptions and unique cadence, but it fell short.
• Tried TOO hard to be shocking. 
• Had TOO many metaphors and similes. Almost every sentence had a metaphor or simile attached to it. It was serious overkill.
• Had characters who were TOO much. The characters were ridiculous, selfish, egotistical, and not very endearing.

I thought the second part of of the book, Furies, which focused on Mathilde’s side of the story, was much better than the first part, which focused on Lotto. I thought that Mathilde’s character was much more developed and more dynamic than Lotto’s character, but I still didn’t find her to be a very likable character. Lotto was charming, but his character development felt shallow and superficial. Not one of my favorites.

The Kill Order (The Maze Runner #0.5) by James Dashner

Before WICKED was formed, before the Glade was built, before Thomas entered the Maze, sun flares hit the earth and mankind fell to disease.

Mark and Trina were there when it happened, and they survived. But surviving the sun flares was easy compared to what came next. Now a disease of rage and lunacy races across the eastern United States, and there’s something suspicious about its origin. Worse yet, it’s mutating, and all evidence suggests that it will bring humanity to its knees.

Mark and Trina are convinced there’s a way to save those left living from descending into madness. And they’re determined to find it—if they can stay alive. Because in this new, devastated world, every life has a price. And to some, you’re worth more dead than alive.

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This book was not at all what I was expecting. I didn’t pay attention to its details when I first downloaded it and was expecting it to be a novella type book. I didn’t realize that it was a full on novel. The Kill Order gives us a fuller picture of what it was like to survive the deadly sun flares and how deadly disease began to decimate the world’s population. It is an action packed story that kept me guessing until the very end. I couldn’t figure out the connection between the characters in this book with the characters in the subsequent books until the surprise reveal at the end. My jaw may or may not have dropped open when I finally figured it out…

If you enjoyed The Maze Runner series, I encourage you to read this one as well.

2016 Reading Challenge: A book and its prequel