What would happen if you combine Blade Runner, Sailor Moon, and the stories of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White? I'm honestly not sure, but I do know what author Marissa Meyer thinks, and that is The Lunar Chronicles. Please be warned, this review will contain spoilers.
*Spoiler Alert*
Before discussing each book individually, I want to get the basis for this series out of the way. At its heart, The Lunar Chronicles is about a world on the edge of war. The Earth, led by the dashing Emperor Kaito, is doing everything it can to prevent the Moon Queen Levana from bringing her legions of magical soldiers to the Earth. Levana has many methods of gaining the throne, and knows how desperate the Earth is to avoid war. Just as pressing on Earth is the spread of the disease Letumosis, which kills at a similar rate to the Black Plague and is effecting millions worldwide.
It is this dire situation that Linh Cinder, part-cyborg mechanic, finds herself an integral of. Cinder, like her fairy tale namesake, is a hard working girl hated by members of her adopted family. As was the case in Sailor Moon, the only person who can stop the evil queen (Beryl) is the lost, and thought dead, princess (Serenity). When Emperor Kai hires Cinder to repair an android, he had no idea the repercussions such a small action would have.
From there, Cinder is thrust into an interplanetary plot to conquer the Earth, and might be the only one who can stop Levana from getting exactly what she wants. She alone has the clues to find Selene, the lost Moon Princess. Her search takes her into space and across the globe, and, at first, she has no idea that the girl she is searching for is herself.
Along the way, she is joined by many others, but the namesakes of the book are Scarlet (a sharpshooting pilot from Earth - aka Red Riding Hood), Cress (an elite hacker from Luna - aka Rapunzel), and Winter (a kind and influential princess of Luna - aka Snow White). Each book adds another of these characters into the mix, while still providing enough pages to the previous characters that it never feels like any character is forgotten. While Cinder is the key character, each of the four girls has their own book, and their own continuing story arc across the series once introduced.
It's impressive how well Meyer is able to differentiate the four leads, and their four 'princes'. Each of the the four girls has a man in their life, and each relationship forms, and grows, in very different ways. Therefore, the relationships never feel stale, because no two pairs are the same. My personal favorite is that of Cinder and Kai, though there is plenty to enjoy in the relationships of Scarlet / Wolf, Cress / Thorne, and Winter / Jacin.
The settings of the book are also expertly done and varied. New Beijing is a vibrant, and at times downtrodden, city full of the little things that show it's more than just a façade. The same is true for the African dessert and the domed cities of the Moon. The only place that wasn't as well developed was Paris. The Benoit farm is well crafted and detailed, but the cities of France are lacking the detail the other locales have.
There are also two side books to the series. Fairest is a story about the rise to power of the Lunar Queen Levana. It does a good job of not following tropes, and provides some surprising revelations about the former Lunar Court. Stars Above is a short story collection which has a story about nearly every character in the main books, as well as a heart warming epilogue to the entire series. Both are great additions to the universe.
Overall, The Lunar Chronicles has something for everyone; the romance of a fairy tale, the action/adventure of a Harrison Ford movie, and a rich science-fiction, but not dystopian, universe. There are few series in YA i have ever enjoyed more.
The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer - 9.5/10 (Cinder - 9.5/10, Scarlet - 8.5/10, Cress - 9/10, Winter - 9.5/10, Fairest- 8.5/10, Stars Above - 9.5/10)
Notes: The author of the series once went by the pen name Alicia Blade, and has written over a million words of Sailor Moon fanfiction. Her story The House on Thornrose Lane: A Grimm Tale has more reviews than any other Sailor Moon fic on Fanfiction.net, and she was a staple of Usa/Mamo romance. She also has a short story, 'The Phantom of Linkshire Manor', under the same pen-name in the book Bound in Skin. As a disclaimer, this review may be biased because I have been following this author's work for over fifteen years, and love nearly everything she has written.
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