“Vanity is a factor, but it is more a question of control. It is eraser to trick others into perceiving you as beautiful if you can convince yourself you are beautiful.” 

Retellings hold a soft spot in many reader’s hearts as it holds the same premises, same identity, and same nostalgia as the tales one reads as a child. Marissa Meyer is one of the many authors who find themselves in this particular form of media, and has created many series and novels in regards to fairytale retellings, such as the Lunar Chronicles, Gilded, and the novel Heartless. 

Residing in New Beijing, Linh Cinder is a cyborg mechanic that is set in a futuristic setting of Earth. Cinder is mistreated by her step mother Adri, and is outcast by those in society despite the cyborg race. In the first chapters of Cinder’s impending adventure, she is approached by Prince Kai who assigns her to repair a damaged android and, in the course of the following changes, finds herself entangled in a bigger political plot that has the potential to alter the earth’s destiny. 

The Lunar Chronicles speaks on the story that spans four books – Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter- where Meyer approaches this retelling with futuristic elements and romantic subplots to stay true to the fairytales that came before. Starting from Cinderella, and following sequentially to Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White, readers are able to follow the story set on both Space and Earth where these fairytale heroines create a new form of challenges.