Book Sniffers: The Lunar Chronicles: Review and Book Trailer

Hello Book Nerds!

I know... It's been months since I posted. My excuses include: Spring quarter finals, summer job, excessively hard senior year classes, 3 clubs, and writer's block.

Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles series is a futuristic retelling of various fairy tales. Cinder concentrates on a female mechanic named Cinder who is considered a second class citizen because of her cyborg status. With a plague infesting the city, her evil stepmother volunteers her as a cure test subject. With a prince, an evil queen from the moon, a sassy robot, and a too small cyborg foot, it is an interesting twist on a familiar fairy tale.

Scarlet continues the story through the perspective of a red hoodie wearing girl named Scarlet who is searching for her kidnapped grandmother. As the threat of the Lunar queen looms, she travels far and wide with a street fighter named Wolf. Along the way she finds clues about the presumed dead Lunar princess that just may be the planet's only hope of escaping the evil Lunar queen's rule.

Cress continues the same story line through young Cress' eyes. She's a Lunar born without their usual powers. Instead of being killed, she has lived in a satellite her entire life, working as an unwilling spy and hacker for the evil queen. But now, she wants out and with Cinder and Scarlet's help, she might finally be free. But then what? They still need to stop the evil Lunar queen from marrying the prince and taking over Earth, and after a messy rescue attempt that separates the group, things aren't looking too good.

Fairest was a prequel written between Cress and the final book in the series. For the first time we really get to know the evil Lunar queen as we travel through her childhood and life as a young woman. For the most part it is an interesting but disturbing look at Lunar culture and ideology. Though you find yourself sympathizing with the future Queen Levana, you'll also find yourself shuddering at alien morals and a culture warped so badly that reality is almost impossible to determine.

Winter is the final story in the Lunar Chronicle series and had only recently come out. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get my hands on a copy yet. From what I have found out though, it centers around the Queen's stepdaughter and Cinder's childhood friend, Winter. On earth, there is a plan brewing that will hopefully place the missing princess on the Lunar throne and keep the earth from Queen Levana's clutches. But will they be able to do it in time to save certain characters from death?

Overall, the series has many interesting plot twists that keep the old stories fresh and captivating. Filled with many suspenseful moments and just the right amount of edginess, this series is a good read for teens, young adults, and grown ups alike.

Last Spring I took a class that focused on Young Adult literature and films. Our end of the quarter project focused on a group project. The book my group had was Cinder. One of the things we did was create a book trailer and show it to the class. I have gotten permission from my fellow actors and group members to post it here. (Note: This is the longer version that we made after the class was over since the project had a time limit.)

We had an amazingly fun time making this trailer! I just want to thank my fellow group members again for being so creative, flexible, and wonderful to work with! And an extra special thank you to Leif, who didn't have to give up his entire Saturday getting bossed around by three females while pretending to be a futuristic prince in a book he'd never read.

Once I started I had a hard time stopping, so I made a blooper reel containing some of our goofs. If you'd like to watch us giggle and mess up, click on the link below.