4 .0 Stars

This series was incredibly enjoyable. All the books in this series are retellings of fairy tales in a sci-fi-esque future. All their stories intertwine to create a riveting and awesome adventure. Cinder is a super rad protagonist. By her name you can imagine that she is a reimagined Cinderella. She is a funny, sarcastic, and spunky cyborg mechanic. She is a great feminist, actually, all the female leads are great feminists.( I also love Iko! She is hilariously fantastic. Wolf and Scarlet make my heart ache. ♥)

As a brown girl, it is refreshing to read a Young Adult series where all of the characters are not white by default. I grew up reading books with white characters and always found it difficult to imagine myself as one of the characters, to relate to, or fully indulge myself because of this sometimes. Thank you, Marissa Meyer, for doing what all these other Young Adult authors whom I have read seem to be unable to do; and that is to make a diverse group of characters. Not only personality wise but ethnically too (Interracial love! YAY). This really made it great for me. Not only are there various races but also people from different planets, androids, and cyborgs. It’s great. It might not concern many readers but diversity is something I look for in my books. I’m excited for all the nonwhite teens who will read this and think, “Yaaasss Princess Winter is Black like me!” or “Cinder is Asian like me! Finally!” Ok, I’m done.

Although some stuff was predictable there are still numerous surprises and you won’t even breathe from anticipation, once you get towards the end. I was excited to see what happened after each installment. I am so sad that it’s over. I  might just read the entire series again!

I definitely see various tidbits that were inspired by Sailor Moon in the series which makes the fangirl in me squeal.

I paired this series with Rogue‘s Morimoto Imperial Pilsner. This beer starts off tasting sweet with a floral scent and finishes with a somewhat bitter taste (not too harsh) that reminds me of Cinder’s “take no shit” attitude.

List of the books in the series, in order of release:
∴ Cinder
∴ Scarlet
∴ Cress
∴ Fairest
∴ Winter

Formats: Paperback. Hardcover.