Fairy tales are literally everywhere. In the movies hitting the big screen to a swath of new show on the small screen. I myself love the show Grimm and Once Upon a Time. We could call this new wave of modern fairy tales a fad, but these age old tales were being told long before the Grimm Brothers wrote them down. They were altered and rearranged and changed. They spark emotion, give a template in which to be creative and relive a familiar tale. So it makes perfect sense that novelist would also be modernizing these stories. In fact, they have been for decades.
The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer takes it a step further–into the future. Lizzie already told you about Cinder here, but as of yesterday, book 2 in this series is here–Scarlet! And you know how second books usually have the sophomore slump? Not this one! Meyer does something that is ingenious, because yes, she does switch perspectives and introduce a whole new character and plot line, but the timeline of the series keeps chugging along. Scarlet picks up days after Cinder ended. And as you can guess from the cover of the book, Scarlet’s story is a take on Little Red Riding Hood. The tag line for the book is one of my favorites: “This time, it’s Little Read Riding Hood set in the distant future. And yes, there is a big, bad Wolf.”
We here at Lemuria are all huge fans of this series. I think five of us are reading or have read it so far. And for a bookstore, that pretty amazing. Meyer doesn’t rest on the laurels of these ancient stories. She takes them and uses them as building blocks to make something entirely new. We all especially like the really the evil villains Meyer adds to these stories. And no I’m not going to tell you who they are.
So come gush over fairy tales, meet an exciting new author and have a good time, tomorrow, Thursday, February 5th at 5:00!
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