A Review of Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicle Series (spoiler free)

I just finished reading Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles series. It is a series marketed for teenage girls where all the main characters are teenage girls, and I don’t care. I ate the series up. There are six books in the Lunar Chronicles. Theoretically, each of the four main narrative books of the series is a science fiction retelling of a fairy tale: Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White. I know what you are saying out there, all you middle-aged men like me. Sounds terrible. Who would want to read that? Well, I would. I did, and I make no apologies.

The reason these books are called the Lunar Chronicle series is because the society (or country) that has developed on the Moon is critical to the series. Earth and Moon societies have a tenuous relationship and have apparently fought wars before. The queen of Luna is ruthless, and there is never any doubt who the villain is.

The point about these being retelling of fairy tales is a bit misleading. Cinderella is the basis for Cinder. Little Red Riding Hood is the basis for Scarlet. Rapunzel is the basis for Cress. And Snow White is the basis for Winter. Each fairy tale sets a very loose framework for the story. A while back I did a review of Cinder and in that review, I said something like: Cinder is no more a retelling of Cinderella than Stephen King’s Dark Tower series is a retelling of The Lord of the Rings. The source material is used for inspiration, but not for plot. It is the same with all the books in this series. If you hadn’t been told that Cress was based on Rapunzel, you would never know. There is just the occasional moment when you recognize an incident or make a connection.

The two other novels in the series are related but are not part of the main continuous narrative. The novel Fairest is a prequel that provides us backstory for the lunar queen Levana. And Stars Above is sort of a prequel-equal-sequel, with each chapter following a different character at a different point in time before, during and after the main series.

So why did I get hooked into the series? It has depth. It has characters I care about. That is probably the main point: characters I care about, and a desire to see justice done against very high odds. I got totally and completely invested in the plot. We explore themes like prejudice and the effect of power. We explore the relationship of good versus evil, but what fairy tale doesn’t do that? I don’t care what age, gender, or race the protagonists are. I rooted for the character Cinder in the same way I rooted for Luke Skywalker the first time I saw Star Wars. You just have to root for an underdog rebel and his/her friends when they go up against an evil empire.

Star Liner

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