Fairest (4) Marissa Meyer

This is the fourth published book in the Lunar Chronicles series. The Lunar Chronicles is a delightful Sci Fi/Fantasy series taking beloved fairy tale characters and making them more badass. Cinder, the first book, is Cinderella-esque (ball and all!) but Cinder is a cyborg. I can't explain this series without making it sound ridiculous but I swear everyone I've talked into reading it has loved it. It's for the Once Upon a Time crowd more than the Game of Thrones crowd, it's lighter than Hunger Games and definitely leans on the prince/princess love stories. 

Fairest is the prequel to the existing series, where we see the origin story of the series' spooky villain Queen Levana. Winter, the fourth book in the actual series was supposed to be published in January, and instead we got Fairest. The book that nobody wanted. It's like the forth book of Game of Thrones* when we have to constantly listen to Cercei, and I almost quit the series. And I love this series. It's my new Harry Potter. Well, no, it isn't. But I need something to look forward to in my life, and Winds of Winter isn't going to be published ever.** 

Except it isn't actually. It's so dark and creepy and I couldn't put it down and begged my friend to read it so I could talk to her because I needed to talk about it with somebody. I think I gained a lot of respect for Marissa Meyer. I was worried she was more of a Stephanie Meyer and would name characters Renessme or some crap, but no! She can write a villain's story and you can understand her, and empathize with her, and still think she's scary and awful and hope Cinder and the rest of the original characters can defeat her. But maybe not too mercilessly because now you can see how damaged she is.  

Now I want to go back and re-read the series, but I can't quite bring myself to since I still need to finish The Bone Clocks (Day 77 and counting...). BUT GUESS WHAT?! As of this post, I have caught up! With this post. Which is adorable to look at. Oh, precious, you're 13 books behind? That's cute. Since I posted that I read 20 more books. TWENTY. And that's not even counting the daily doses of children's picture books I read. So what will I finish first? 20 blog posts or The Bone Clocks? Stay tuned...

PS Winter will be out in November and Facebook is already showing me adds for it. Facebook knows me too well. 

*Yes, it's called A Song of Ice and Fire but everyone knows it as Game of Thrones and I try not to sound as pretentious as I actually am. 
** Maybe 2017? GRRM stopped writing the show so he could work on it but I don't trust him. 

This is the creepiest cover ever...

This is seriously the creepiest f-ing cover in the world. I promise there is not some terrifying monster under there...oh wait that's probably exactly what it is.

I'm just writing to warn you that the 3.5th book in The Lunar Chronicles is coming out January 27th, so you should get started reading and catch up. Book one is Cinder and it's about Cinderella in the year 3000 or something and she's a cyborg. This is usually the point where people look at me like I'm a crazy YA fantasy reader who has no idea what a good book is. And there is absolutely zero way I can convince you otherwise and still talk about these books, because they are absolutely YA fantasy but they are also absolutely amazing and I'm more obsessed than I should be.

I keep telling myself that they aren't that great. I tried to not be excited about this book, in fact I was quite angry when I found out that instead of Winter (Book 4) we were getting Levana's origin story (Book 3.5??), but I'm a sucker for this series and I'm excited and I'm going to assume that we need this story to properly enjoy Winter when it comes out...supposedly November 24, 2015 which is in over a year. 

UGHHHHHHH. 

Cress (5)

I'm so sorry. I talked and talked about how excited I was about this book, and then I never mentioned that I actually read it. I did. Within three days of it coming out.

This is the third book in The Lunar Chronicles series.

In true Jana fashion, I really don't know what I like so much about these books.

Ok, that's not true...I love YA love stories. Because they have that lovely Disney quality to them, where at the end they get together and everything is all happily ever after.

Grown-up novels always talk about that messy part where you like each other, you finally get together, and then after awhile your fantasy-boy starts to become a real person and you have to deal with each other. And then people break up and hurt each other and yell a lot. I'd rather they try to kill each other with their magic powers OBVIOUSLY.

Also, I am obsessed with Cinderella. I've done the play 3 times now. I've read every book that so much as mentions it might be about Cinderella. It's my thing. If it's yours too, read these books. If you liked Once Upon A Time, read these books. If you like Merlin, probably definitely read these books.

I don't LOVE this show, BUT I like it more than I should.

Also, UPDATE on my whole blogging situation. NO WONDER there was a month long hiatus. I wrote about 4 books per blog post for the last 3 posts!! What was I thinking?

I know what I was thinking. I was thinking I AM THE BOOK MASTER. I READ ALL THE BOOKS. Which is true (I mean, sort of) but here's how I read them: 4 at a time. 1 audiobook in car or while running, 1 on kindle at bedtime, & 1 physical book for when I'm not trying to sleep or at work, & then a play or nonfiction or whatever. (or all of the above) SO I don't finish anything for 3-4 weeks, and then I finished 3-5 books in one week. And then I hammer out a bunch of reviews and set them to go up one week apart. 

ALSO since I still haven't read Henry IV, I don't want to read plays and I need to because I desperately need some new monologues. I have read 14 books this year and there have only been 12 weeks of the year. I shouldn't have run out but I got cocky. 

Let this be a lesson: When feeling like a failure, look not on what you have NOT accomplished, look instead upon what you HAVE accomplished. - Every Successful Person Ever 

You welcome, world. All 25 of you that read my blog.

OMG IT'S LIKE I HAVE A CLASSROOM ALREADY.