Two Book Series I've Really Enjoyed this Year - Lunar Chronicles and the Reckless Series

Have you noticed that I stopped keeping track of the books I was reading.  When we were getting ready to move I just didn't have time and then by the time I did I had forgotten what I'd been reading.  It got me so stressed out I finally just decided to stop keeping track.  Sometimes I feel a little guilty, especially when I think about the beautiful book review Bridget puts together at the end of the year but I also feel free.  I can just read my books and enjoy them and don't have to worry about remember the titles or taking pictures are summarizing it up.  I also don't have to worry about continuing to read books I hate.  Because I set a yearly goal of books I wanted to read each month I found myself continuing to read books I hated just to get the number.  Now I have the freedom to say forget it.  That being said I really should mention and keep track of books I've really enjoyed.  There are two series I've read this year that I've just loved.

The first is the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer 
The first book was Cinder, I read it back in September of 2014 and I felt so so on it.  It was a futuristic version of Cinderella where Cinderella was a cyborg.  It was interesting but I didn't think it was that special.  When I found out it was going to be a multi book series I didn't really plan on reading any of the others but then January I was looking for something new to read so I picked up the next book Scarlet.  I loved Scarlet so much.  Scarlet added a new heroine, a French farm girl who represented little red riding hood.  She came with her own love interest, a soldier with spliced in wolf genes who happens to be called Wolf.  Wolf was delicious.  Please, please, please tell me that when they turn these books into movies that Liam Hemsworth plays Wolf. Yum!  At this point I was hooked on the books.  A few months later I got my hands on Cress.  Cress follows a new character, a hacker locked up in a satellite around the moon.  She is Rapunzel. Her job is to find the Cinder and Scarlet for the evil lunar queen but she soon becomes irrelevant to her master and is dropped to earth with her love interest, Carswell Thorne, a fugitive republic "Captain" who escaped from prison with Cinder.  He is a rake and equally Wolf delicious.  Think Orlando bloom in pretty much anything he has ever been in.  Good grief I wish he wasn't so old (and by old I mean my age) because he would have been perfect to play Carswell in the movie....or young Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can or Titanic.  But since age is catching up with us, maybe Ansel Elgort.  By this point I was just hooked.  Two delicious romantic interest, (there are actually three, Prince Kaito as well but he is just always so indecisive, he just isn't my type), three heroins, it was fun.  The next book in the series was Fairest.  It was at this point that Meyer won me over forever.  Fairest is actually a prequel and tells the story of Queen Levana the antagonist of the whole series, the evil Lunar Queen.  It is still perfect to read right after Cress.  The story explains what makes Levana so evil, what drives her madness, and explains some of the antagonism toward Cinder.  I'm not going to say it justifies all her behavior but it gives you another perspective and it definitely left me torn.  It is one of the saddest stories in a series of sad stories and I really loved that Meyer included it, she didn't have to but for me it really elevated the whole series.  Now the final book Winter is out.  It is actually sitting on my dresser right now.  I immediately ordered it but I ordered it for the kids to give me for Christmas and so I've kept my hands off of it.  It is killing me but I promise I will have it finished by the end of the year.  This is a great series and if you like young adult lit I highly recommend it.  There is a lot of girl power, there is this quirky futuristic fairy-tale angle and there is a lot of love interest.  It is sort of the perfect teen girl book or grown up lady who enjoys teen girl books.  It feels a lot to me like the Hunger Games appeal but I need to see if I can get J to read one so I can see if it is cross gender interesting.

Another series I've devoured this month is the Reckless Series by Cornelia Funke.  The first book is Reckless and follows two brothers after their father disappears from their lives.  The older one is Jacob Reckless who has been entering a mirror world in his father's study since he was twelve years old.  The Mirrorworld is sort of a Grimm based fairy-tale land.  The land is being overrun by Goyl, a humanoid race from underground who are made of stone.  The king of this group has a fairy mistress who has made a way for his soldiers to turn humans into Goyl.  After years Jacob's brother Will finally follows him through the mirror and is turned into a Goyl, but he is a Jade Goyl, one who has been prophesied to be the savior the the King of the Goyl.  Jacob makes it his mission to heal Will.  The second book was Fearless.  In this story Jacob has to save himself from a curse he had to take on to save Will.  I'm now in the middle of the third book which came out this week, The Golden Yarn.  I'm loving this one as well.  These books have romance, political intrigue, magic, familial love, fairy-tale references.  I have really enjoyed them.  Supposedly this is suppose to be a five book series.  I don't know if it is actually going to make it to five and it doesn't help that Funke writes them German and I have to wait for them to be translated but I'm really hoping she finishes them.  This series is better than the Inkheart trilogy in my opinion!