bandherbooks's Reviews (3.65k)

I read this book when I was like 10 or 11. One of the first romances I can remember reading. I was enthralled with asthmatic (I think she had asthma) Mary Katherine's new life on the frontier, and loved Mike. Pretty sexy stuff for a 11 year old.

Cinder is 36% android, and the legal property of her step mother. Working as a mechanic to help pay for her family's lifestyle, she meets the handsome Prince Kai of the Eastern Commonwealth when he brings her a robot to fix. After her step sister is struck down with an incurable plague, Cinder is sold off as a research subject but soon finds out she may be even more different than she realizes. Can she help her world fight this plague and keep Prince Kai from marrying the evil Lunar Queen who only wants to rule Earth?

I really enjoyed the world-building in this tale. Earth is divided up much differently than in our time, and Meyer has a nice mix of future and Asian flavors in the new city of Beijing. Although Prince Kai is not really described in the best detail, I imagine him to be a handsome Asian prince which is nice to see. The stuff with the ball was a bit tiresome, but I liked how it made sense in the end. The evil mind controlling Lunar race was pretty cool too. Reminded me a bit of the evil King Leck in Graceling and Bitterblue. Hard enemy to fight, for sure! I am excited to see how Cinder fights against Queen Levana. I also loved that Cinder was a mechanic and into fixing her own body parts and old cars. She didn't need a dress or fancy parties, she only put up with it to save her man. Ends in a cliff hanger, so I'm definitely interested to see where this party is heading!

Aria, Perry, Roar, the dwellers, and the Tides need to rescue Cinder and finally escape to the Still Blue as their world falls apart.

Some spoilers ahead...reader beware!


This series ender was a bit lackluster for me. I never really got a great explanation for WHY the Aether existed, or how the Still Blue could be possible. I also grew tired of the bouts of jealousy that Rossi made Aria and Peregrine go through. Their commitment was established, let's focus on more important things, like surviving! Sable continued to be a bad ass villain and I was happy when he got his in the end, but the addition of a plot line involing Aria's father was not as impactful as it could have been. Glad I finished. This ender left me feeling the same as Allegiant, a bit cold.

Melissa Atkins Wardy addresses a pressing issue that I, as a mother of a 2 year old daughter, am ever more aware of. How, as parents and more importantly as a society can we help girls have true childhoods and let them decide what "girly" really is? Babies dolls, Disney princesses, and pink can't be all there is.

Wardy also spends a lot of time addressing the marketization of gender. Why not make more money off of the consumer if we are willing to buy twice the amount of goods so we have the proper gendered item for our children? Lord forbid we use a pink sippy cup for our sons, or a blue one with a truck on it for our daughters. Wardy's section on how to address this in an appropriate manner with your local vendors and on social media was a nice section.

Wardy does get preachy; she herself admits her "hot button" issue is sexualized dolls (i.e. Barbies, Bratz, Monster High), but her willingness to address this openly is laudable. Also helpful is the section that provides ways to address the differences we all have in raising our children and how to be diplomatic in providing your own views. No one likes a know it all or parents who are so rigid they forbid their children to even attend parties or visit a friend because they don't "approve" of the toys/media/consumerism in the household. As long as your child is safe and taken care of, simply have a conversation about why these same items or ideas aren't allowed in your own home.

The best advice she provides is to teach your children to constantly question why things are the way they are. Let's all have a conversation, no judgment needed.

Continuing her science fiction take on classic fairy tales, Scarlet introduces us to a girl searching for her grandma, who may or may not have ties to the lost Lunar Princess.

Tons of fun, lots of spaceships, and a cute Wolf who may or may not have Scarlet's best interests at heart. Meyer manages to juggle the various characters quite well, and leaves you ready for book 3.

Actual rating, 3.5 out of 4 stars.

Cinder, Scarlet, Wolf, and Captain Thorne are orbiting Earth in Thorne's spaceship, trying to stay hidden from Queen Levana and the Eastern Commonwealth. They desperately need to get back to Earth and train Cinder to use her Lunar gift in hopes of thrawting Levana's wedding to Emperor Kai. Thankfully, they kept a communication chip that connects them to Cress, the titular character who has been stuck in a satellite all alone for seven years. Cress is a dreamy, chirpy girl with amazing hacking skills who is sick and tired of being used as a pawn of the Lunar Queen. She wants out, wants friends, and is in love love love with Captain Thorne. Too bad the gang's attempted rescue of Cress goes so wrong...

Again, Meyer does a great job of balancing out her characters. Cress is super endearing, especially in her crush on the undeserving (or so it seems) Captain Thorne. I knocked it a half a star more out of spite then anything else. One of my favs was MIA for the majority of this tale.

Now we must wait for Winter, in 2015.

A brief overview of the life and work of Margaret Sanger, in comic form. I would not recommend this to people unfamiliar with Margaret Sanger or even those without a firm grasp of the history of this time period. The narrative was very choppy, with lots of leaps in time (time change only noted in very small writing in the upper corner of the panel) which made it difficult to keep track of what year you were in, and what historical events were going on at the time. My favorite vignettes were about her childhood (her mother was pregnant 18 times; 11 children were born, and 10 lived to adulthood) and about her free love lifestyle. Pretty progressive!

I did not enjoy the artwork; very busy for my taste. However, Bagge's fair image of Sanger was appropriate. Sanger was a woman of her time and she did use language and methods that today we would consider racist and backwards. However, this does not take away from her contributions to women's rights.