Join The Resistance: A Lunar Chronicles Giveaway

YOU GUYS!!!!! Do you know what tomorrow is? It's the release day for a little book called Winter, the fourth and final book in the Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer. *fangirl flail* I have been obsessing over this book from the moment I met Winter in Cress, and now, after waiting 133 years (okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, it just felt that long), it's finally time.

In order to celebrate Winter's release, the amazing team at Fierce Reads is letting me give away a prize pack of AWESOME including a copy of Cinder (for those of you who need to start at the beginning!) and fun Lunar Chronicles metallic tattoos. It's possible I've been sporting shiny gold wrist cuffs for a few weeks, forcing my husband to ask the question he should really know better than to ask by now: Why? I told him I'd joined the resistance because Winter was coming. He just nodded and walked away, probably because that's not even in the top 10 weirdest book-related things I've said to him. He's super glad he married me, obviously ;-)

Before I get to the giveaway, here's a little bit about Winter just in case not all of you have stalked this series as closely as I have:)

Princess Winter is admired by the Lunar people for her grace and kindness, and despite the scars that mar her face, her beauty is said to be even more breathtaking than that of her stepmother, Queen Levana.

Winter despises her stepmother, and knows Levana won't approve of her feelings for her childhood friend--the handsome palace guard, Jacin. But Winter isn't as weak as Levana believes her to be and she's been undermining her stepmother's wishes for years. Together with the cyborg mechanic, Cinder, and her allies, Winter might even have the power to launch a revolution and win a war that's been raging for far too long.

Can Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter defeat Levana and find their happily ever afters? Fans will not want to miss this thrilling conclusion to Marissa Meyer's national bestselling Lunar Chronicles series.

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Review: Cress

CRESS
The Lunar Chronicles #3
Marissa Meyer
Young Adult/Sci-Fi/Fairytale Retelling
560 pages
Feiwel & Friends
Available February 4th
Source: ARC from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
In this third book in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles series, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army.

Their best hope lies with Cress, who has been trapped on a satellite since childhood with only her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker—unfortunately, she’s just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice.

When a daring rescue goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing stop her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only ones who can.

MY THOUGHTS
Cress is a story we enter into with a great deal of excitement, though as was the case with Scarlet we can’t help but let a little wariness sneak in and mingle with our enthusiasm, wondering if it’s going to be this installment when the addition of yet another new main character proves to be a detriment to the overall story rather than a bonus. While Cress as a stand-alone heroine isn’t quite as strong as either Cinder or Scarlet before her, Ms. Meyer proves yet again what a brilliant storyteller she truly is, seamlessly working Cress into the fabric of her stunningly rich and detailed fantasy world and nestling her in with an already-beloved cast of characters as though she’d been there all along.

Cress, unlike both Cinder and Scarlet, isn’t much of a fighter either mentally or physically, her solitary confinement creating in her an air of extreme innocence and vulnerability that takes a little while to adjust to coming off our experiences with the previous two heroines. While each young woman’s original fairytale had them as damsels in various types of distress, both Scarlet and Cinder defied that label in terms of its common connotation to weakness in their retellings, their independence and fierceness present and accounted for. Cress embraces the damsel in distress label a little more fully, often needing the hilarious and endlessly amusing Captain Thorne to come to her aid. It’s not to say she’s without skills as she’s a truly gifted hacker and plays a significant and vital role in the events of this book, she’s just perhaps quieter and more reserved (understandably given what she’s gone through) than we might have been anticipating.

If this had been Cress’s book alone, one that focused primarily on her and relegated Cinder to a more supporting role, this installment may have come up just a touch short when compared to the first two, but Cress is beautifully bolstered by Ms Meyer’s extraordinary and extensive cast of main and secondary characters. This story is every bit as much Cinder’s as it is Cress’s, and as a result Cress becomes a little something different–a beautiful contrast–to the two young women we’ve already met, rounding out the whole with her differences as opposed to coming off as less-than as she might have on her own. Her relationship with Thorne is a touch weaker as well, but again the strength of Cinder’s relationship with Kai and particularly Scarlet’s with Wolf (despite their limited page time) more than fills in any empty spaces left by the lack of an overly strong emotional connection to the pair of them, and we can only hope that their romance is one that continues to develop in Winter just as the other two romances progressed in this installment.

While there is a myriad of positive aspects and highlights to Cress over which to gush, one of the most arguably striking would have to be the very brief introduction to Winter herself, a young woman who captivates from the moment she appears on page and leaves us profoundly curious after a single interaction with Scarlet. She is a series of riddles, a labyrinthine character full of dark corners and wrong turns who has us practically salivating over the chance to figure her out, but despite the pain of a long wait until she graces us with more of her presence, we are left in awe of Ms. Meyer’s imagination and more in love with her characters than ever before.

Rating: 4/5
 

Find Marissa

Website • Facebook • Twitter • Goodreads • Amazon

This book was sent to me by the publisher free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.

Review: Scarlet

SCARLET
The Lunar Chronicles #2
Marissa Meyer
Young Adult/Fairytale retelling/Dystopian
464 pages
Feiwel & Friends
Available February 5th
Received from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Cinder returns in the second thrilling installment of the New York Times-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 and 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 has no choice but to trust him, though he clearly has a few dark secrets of his own.

As Scarlet and Wolf work to unravel one mystery, they find another when they cross paths with Cinder. Together, they must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen who will do anything to make Prince Kai her husband, her king, her prisoner.

MY THOUGHTS 
Scarlet is a sequel that has us initially on edge, our desire to return to Cinder's story alone rather than embark on an entirely separate journey with a new cast of characters strong enough that we crack the spine with a wary sort of anticipation, hoping our doubts will be quickly proven unfounded. Luckily for us, Ms. Meyer gives us everything we could have wished for in this second installment, teasing us a bit as Scarlet and Cinder's stories run parallel to one another for majority of the book, never quite intersecting even as we know they must at some point cross paths. Normally, this setup can be a touch frustrating for us as readers, our eagerness to stay with one character, in this case Cinder since we are more familiar with her, causing us to skim through the other character's chapters in our haste to return to the one who has most captured our attention, however, Scarlet's story captivates from the beginning, and we revel in our time with her as much as we do our time with Cinder herself.

Though Scarlet's search for her missing grandmother and her budding romance with Wolf is as engrossing as the continuation of Cinder's tale, Scarlet herself doesn't quite grab us emotionally from the beginning the way Cinder did. This could perhaps be attributed to the nature of their original fairytales, with Cinderella's status as an underdog causing us to immediately back her, whereas Little Red Riding Hood is a young woman who isn't quite observant enough to notice her precious grandmother has suddenly developed canine features until it's far too late. Scarlet is thankfully far more layered and interesting than her fairytale counterpart, though they share a similarity in their susceptibility to deceit given Scarlet is often quick to believe what superficial appearance tells her is the truth while neglecting to examine the situation from multiple angles before judgement is passed and a negative opinion is formed.

Despite her inability to think with her mind and heart instead of simply trusting her eyes, Scarlet is certainly someone we come to care about, and her troubled relationship with Wolf is gorgeously depicted. Wolf is a deeply intriguing character, both alpha and beta hero wrapped up in one uniquely contradictory package. On one hand, he's alpha to the extreme, a gifted street fighter with a penchant for using his fists to make a life for himself, but he's also shockingly quiet and often reserved once the adrenaline rush fades from his system. He's both curious and hesitant to spend time in Scarlet's presence when not in a violent setting, often exhibiting a skittishness and fear of the unknown so common in his wild namesake. As Cinder and Kai's did, Scarlet and Wolf's romantic relationship builds slowly, something we appreciate even more given that this story is not theirs alone but instead shared with the aforementioned couple, allowing us plenty of time to truly believe in them together.

Though Scarlet is over 400 pages in length, it passes in an utter blur, our excitement over learning of Kai and Cinder's fate since we left them last combining with our giddiness over the addition of a striking new couple to ensure time absolutely flies by when reading. We of course reach the end with no conclusion to the threat of Queen Levana in place, but we can't help but be content with what we've learned in this installment, feeling optimistic when we look ahead to future books that while we'll often face a “to be continued” of sorts at the end of them, we'll never be left unsatisfied.

Rating:4.5/5

Be sure and check out my interview with Marissa Meyer HERE and also enter for a chance to win copies of Cinder and Scarlet!

Scarlet Blog Tour: Interview with Marissa Meyer + A Giveaway

I'm positively giddy today at the fact that I have young adult author Marissa Meyer joining me on the blog as part of the promotional tour for the second book in her Lunar Chronicles series, Scarlet. I absolutely adored the first book in the series, Cinder, and after finishing it Scarlet immediately went to the top of my "I may die if I don't read this" list for 2013. I'm thrilled to say it didn't disappoint! I thought it was a brilliant sequel, and I hope everyone runs to the bookstore on February 5th and loves it as much as I did!

If you could write yourself into any fairytale, which would it be and what role would you play?

This will probably sound crazy, but I have a weird envy toward Rapunzel. All that free time. So much peace and quiet. Just think how many books you could read! But I could probably do without all the crazy-overprotective-witch and blinded-prince stuff.

In Scarlet, we get not only the continuation of Cinder’s story but also the introduction of Scarlet’s journey as well, and both progress side by side until Cinder and Scarlet finally cross paths toward the end. What challenges did writing two separate-but-linked stories present over simply continuing Cinder’s story on its own?

Probably the most difficult part of writing this book (and Book 3, which I’ve just turned into my editor) was keeping a good balance between the storylines. Scarlet is the hero of this book, but Cinder is the hero of the entire series, so I didn’t want readers to get bored with or forget about either protagonist. I did a lot of shuffling around of their different chapters, trying to figure out the best points to break from a storyline and ensure that there was a good mix of suspense and information-gathering. It was kind of like putting together a really big puzzle.

Kai and Wolf are both strong, butterfly-inducing romantic leads, but let’s say they’re not in the picture for Cinder and Scarlet at the moment. Which other fairytale hero (or villain) might each young woman ask on a first date if her life wasn’t so crazy?

Hahaha, what a fun question! Of course, the problem with real fairy tale princes is that so many of them are so booooooring in their original tales, and neither Scarlet nor Cinder would be interested in a relationship with a pretty figurehead. So, hmm. If he was older, Cinder might look twice at Pinocchio—their history of prostheses would at least give them something to talk about. And Scarlet would want someone who fits in on the family farm—perhaps the youngest son in Puss in Boots (they were farmers, right?). In the end, he wouldn’t be ambitious enough for her, but she might want to keep his clever cat around.

If you were facing the same impending battle that Cinder is with the Lunar queen and had an expert fighter like Wolf in your camp, what’s the first thing you’d ask him to teach you?

Any of Levana’s secrets, that he knows. I don’t think any amount of training could turn me into a fighter, so I’d have to rely on wits and strategy.

Thorne is accompanying you on a promotional tour for Scarlet. How long do you think it will take for him to get himself in trouble?

My first tour stop is in Nashville this year, so I suspect it would take him all of an hour before he stole an authentic Elvis jumpsuit, and had convinced himself how goooood he looks in it. Rawr.

If Cinder were to ask you one question about the writing of her character, what do you think she would most want to know?

She might question her fashion decisions. Normally when we think of Cinderella we envision shimmering ball gowns and glass slippers… or at least a neatly pressed apron. But Cinder spends almost the entire series in some form of the boots + cargo pants + plain tank top or T-shirt uniform. Poor girl. I hope someone writes a fanfic that allows her to get dolled up for something!

There are quite a few technological advancements in Cinder and Scarlet’s futuristic world. What one piece of technology do you wish we had here?

Who doesn’t want hovercars? (Bonus: They drive themselves!)

If Emperor Kai were to address fans of the series and give us a briefing as to what to expect from book three, what might his concluding words to us be?

“Please rest assured that the other characters and I are working very hard to ensure the future safety of our planet, but I’m afraid things are going to get a lot worse before they start getting better.” Then as an aside to me, he’d probably ask, “Things are going to get better… right?”

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions Marissa! More information on Marissa and the fantastic Lunar Chronicles series can be found here:

Website
Blog
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Amazon Buy Link

And don't forget to check out the remainder of this tour and the other participating blogs for more interviews, guest posts, reviews and giveaways, all the details can be found HERE. Tomorrow's stop is at Anna Reads.

SCARLET

LUNAR CHRONICLES GOODIES

•     Meet Marissa on tour!
•     Download 2 Lunar Chronicles short stories for only $.99 each
      - Glitches
      - The Queen's Army
•    Read the first 5 chapters of Scarlet
•    Watch the Cinder trailer

GIVEAWAY

Thanks to the fabulous team at Macmillan and Marissa Meyer, I have a paperback copy of Cinder and a hardcover copy of Scarlet to give away on the blog today. *happy dance* To enter, please just fill out the Rafflecopter form below. Giveaway is open US/Canada only. Good luck everyone!

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