I'd been looking forward to this book since the day I heard about it. It's always nice to revisit characters you already know and love in new stories. Stars Above is a collection of short stories that let you do just that. Most of them are backstory and critical moments of the main characters from the rest of the Lunar Chronicles series. It was great to get a full picture of these key moments for them. There are three new stories, though. The Little Android, Mechanic and Something Old, Something New are not backstory. 

 

I've loved the characters since each of their appearances in their respective books and gushed about them then (Cinder, Scarlett, Cress, Winter and Fairest reviews at their links). It was also great to hear Rebecca Soler's voice again as she narrated this book as well. 

 

The excerpt from Heartless was good. It didn't make my heart flutter like CInder had, but that's to be expected. The concepts are not similar enough to create the exact same reaction. I love a fairy tale reimagining more than I can possibly express, and my affinity for Alice in Wonderland just isn't as up there. Meyers is a wonderful writer, though, so I'm sure I will still love it.

Bridget had never really given much thought to what it might be like to be held prisoner with her captor's hand quite literally threatening to choke the life out of her, but she felt quite sure that she would never have imagined that the experience would primarily be tedious.

page 156 of 630

 

Smart, powerful and feisty women.

heroic heroes

good bad guys

action and danger

cats!

 

 

Cinder - Marissa Meyer
Series: The Lunar Chronicles #1
Published by: Feiwel & Friends, on 3 January 2012
Genres: Science Fiction, Suspense, Young Adult
Pages: 390, Source: Kindle Purchase
Reading Challenges: 2015 Reading Assignment Challenge, 2015 TBR Pile Reading Challenge, Bookish Resolutions Challenge 2015

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.

Cinder was up for a slow start, but after a while, things were happening more quickly, and while I was able to guess pretty early on who exactly Cinder was, I was still amazed at the way the story unfolded.

 

My Cinder review:

Cinder is part cyborg, and her adoptive mother treats her as a servant, so much so that all the money Cinder earns is deposited into Adri’s account rather than Cinder’s. As a gifted mechanic, with a stall at the market, she meets Crown Prince Kai when he needs help to repair his android. Meeting Kai is like a dream to her, but she knows he would be disgusted if he knew she was a cyborg, so rather than dreaming stupid day-dreams, she vows to repair his android and continue to do everything she can to escape New Beijing and Adri.

 

The world is not a great place to live in these times, the lunar people are sporting for a war, there is a pest killing more people every day, with no cure in sight. When Peony, the one person Cinder feels close to, becomes ill, Adri and Pearl blame her – as if every bad thing that could happen to their family somehow has to be her fault.

 

The plot is intricate, with politics, segregation of the cyborgs, death, and ultimately there might be a horrific war. And Cinder is in the center of it all! I have always thought that fairy tale re-tellings are either hit or miss with me, and Cinder definitely hit the spot! Apart from her name, the only thing that made Cinder a little like Cinderella was the fact that she was treated as a slave by her adoptive mother, and that there was to be a big ball where the prince was likely to choose his bride. Our main character has a lot of inner strength, though, and she is confident enough to stand up for herself when it is really needed. Twists and turns were able to show me how New Beijing works, and I enjoyed the way the story unfolded.

 

Written in third person point of view, from Cinder’s perspective in past tense, the story is both captivating and has a certain fairy tale feel to it, even if the world is bleak, different and quite possible deadly. I look forward to reading more books in the Lunar Chronicles series, and even if I wish I had read this earlier, in another way, I’m happy I waited so that I can read the next books at my leisure, without having to wait for them to be released.

 

 Some of my favorite Cinder quotes:

Tossing the screwdriver onto the table, Cinder gripped her heel and yanked the foot from its socket. A spark singed her fingertips and she jerked away, leaving the foot to dangle from a tangle of red and yellow wires.

 

Clearing her throat, Cinder refocused on the android. She found the nearly invisible latch and opened its back panel. “Why aren’t the royal mechanics fixing her?”

 

Iko craned her head, aiming the round sensor up at the prince, who towered more than three feet above her. the light flared as her scanner recognized him. “Prince Kai,” she said, her metallic voice squeaking. “You are even more handsome in person.”

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

• 2015 Reading Assignment Challenge
• 2015 TBR Pile Reading Challenge
• Bookish Resolutions Challenge 2015

For a while now, I've been kind of worried that I've lost the ability to love the books I read. It seems like everything I've read lately has just been “okay” at best. I wasn't sure how to break out of my funk. Should I read a new-to-me book by an author whose works I've enjoyed in the past? Should I reread an old favorite? I fretted that my reading funk might cause me to dislike books I'd normally enjoy.Then Cinder came in via interlibrary loan. I read it in a couple days and loved it. It's not flawless, but I loved it anyway, and that makes me so happy. It confirms that my ability to love the things I read is not broken.This was a fabulously imaginative retelling of the Cinderella story. It included a lot of recognizable Cinderella story elements, but it didn't always use them the same way they were used in more traditional versions. I excitedly noted mentions of Cinder's tiny prosthetic foot (Cinderella's tiny feet), the gasoline-powered car she found in a junkyard (Cinderella's ride to the ball), and more, and I made guesses about story elements I couldn't be sure of.The first mentions of letumosis, a plague that could affect just about anyone on Earth at any time, came as a shock. I had figured that Cinder would be a futuristic but still fairly straight retelling of the Cinderella story, and the plague didn't fit in with that. While the plague portions were definitely interesting and added a lot of tension, they also tied in with several of the issues I had with this book.First, it bothered me that the plague was never explained very well. Its victims went through several stages before dying, including one in which they developed bruise-like spots. There were never any survivors – anyone who caught the plague died of it. Beyond that, though, there weren't really any details. People acted like they had no clue how the plague was transmitted. They freaked out if they were anywhere near someone discovered to have it, and everything a plague victim touched was burned. Was the plague transmitted by touch? Was it airborne? I couldn't really tell. It seemed to just spontaneously appear.Second, this book had a kind of weird mix of tones, and the plague elements were part of that. Some things were very dark: the deaths of several characters due to the plague, cyborg plague testing, and Queen Levana's threats of war and willingness to brainwash anyone who opposed her. Other things were lighter: planning for the ball and Cinder's giddy attraction to Prince Kai. The different tones didn't always blend in quite the right way for me. For example, Prince Kai flirting with Cinder shortly after the death of his father, who readers were told he was close to. His father had been sick for maybe a week, so it wasn't like he had had a long time to get used to the idea that his father was going to die. It was a little jarring, but not so much that it completely threw me off. It feels nitpicky, but this slightly “off” mix of light and dark happened a few times throughout the book.The little things that didn't quite work for me were eclipsed by the things I loved, though. One of those was the pacing, which was good and fast. Another was Prince Kai. He tended to act more like a regular guy than like a prince, and even I noticed that Meyer never really showed readers why he fell so hard for Cinder rather than someone else. However. I wanted to hug him. He was sweet, and kind, and persistent (but not to the point of being a pushy jerk), even when Cinder turned him down without an explanation. He mostly saw her in work clothes, complete with grease smudges, and he didn't mind. He never once acted embarrassed to be around her, even though the story gave him at least a couple opportunities to be embarrassed. He was pretty much perfect for Cinder. The only thing is, romance fans need to be aware that this book doesn't end with Cinder and Kai's HEA – I'm hoping we'll get that in a future book.Cinder was another thing I liked about this book. She was good at what she did and loyal to the people she loved. By the end, she was in a better position to save Prince Kai than the other way around, and I'm looking forward to seeing how things turn out.Despite recognizing that this book had flaws, I still loved it, and I can't wait to read the next book.Goodreads Rating Note: I want to give this 5 stars, I really do, but every time I get ready to do it my mind flits back to the problems I couldn't help noticing despite the speed with which I was plowing through it. So, 4 stars it is.(Original review, with read-alikes and watch-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

If I could give stars for imagination, Marissa Meyer would get a five from me! This was such a new, crazy idea, and I wasn't prepared for how inventive she got with the same ole Cinderella story line.Cinder is a cyborg, a mechanic, and of course, a grunt, living in some future "New Beijing." This story takes place after World War IV, and society has had a rough time but still managed to flourish. The moon now has beings...human like beings called Lunars, and they have a pretty negative connotation. There is a horrible, deadly disease that is ravaging the world, and no one knows a cure or what to do. So we all know what happens in Cinderella...Cinder is living a life of slavery and drudgery in her own home.Her evil stepmother and stepsisters are simply horrible.Cinder inadvertently meets the prince.The prince falls in love.Cinder wants to go to the ball.Evil stepmother ruins her chances and dashes her hopes.Cinder manages to thwart said evil stepmother and attends the ball anyhow.But this story has a woman trying to steal the prince from Cinder, a kind old doctor who is more than he seems, and unexpected death and torment that I really didn't see coming. I still got a tad bored with the details, and the end basically answers very few questions and leaves it wide open for the next book. Basically, this book has NO ENDING, which is a pet peeve of mine. The end actually creates more questions than the entire story answers. But for entertainments value, and if you don't mind an open ended story, this is worth the time.