Guest Post: Marissa Meyer - 10 Things You May Not Know About Cinderella

Marissa Meyer is the author of Cinder: Book One of the Lunar Chronicles. Though it may be 1
of 2,000 takes on this popular tale, she thinks readers will still find some things to be surprised
by. Follow her on Twitter (@marissa_meyer) or become a fan at facebook.com/lunarchronicles
and facebook.com/marissameyerauthor.



10 Things You May Not Know About Cinderella

I’ve been an enormous fan of fairy tales and their retellings since I was a child, and between that and the research I completed for Cinder—my debut novel and a futuristic retelling of “Cinderella”—I’ve amassed my share of random trivia tidbits about this popular tale. Here are
some of my favorite factoids:

- Some anthropologists believe that every culture in the world has some version of the “rags to riches” tale.

- According to fairy tale scholars, the oldest recorded story of Cinderella is from 9th-century China. In this tale, called “Yeh-shen,” the heroine’s magical helper is a fish rather than a fairy godmother.

- Speaking of China, although European cultures did have rags-to-riches stories previously, some believe that the foot-that-fits-the-shoe sequence first came to Europe from traders to Asia. The theory is that it began with the tradition of women’s foot-binding that was prevalent in China’s upper classes for hundreds of years.

- The iconic fairy godmother and glass slipper come from the 1697 Charles Perrault version of the story. In the Grimm version, Cinderella’s shoes were instead made of pure gold and were bestowed on her by the spirit of her dead mother, manifested as a white bird.

- Though we typically think of Cinderella losing her shoe on the stairs by accident, in the Grimm tale it was actually a trap laid by the prince. After two nights of watching his dream girl run off and disappear, he decided have pitch smeared on the steps, which led to Cinderella’s shoe getting stuck.

- In some of the earlier and gorier versions of the tale (including Grimm), the two stepsisters cut off their heel and toe, respectively, with a knife in order to squeeze their foot into the slipper. They were found out when two pigeons (friends of Cinderella’s) tattled on them to the prince and he discovered blood pooling out of the shoe.

- Those two pigeons play another gruesome role in the story: on the royal wedding day, they peck out the stepsisters’ eyes as retribution for how they treated Cinderella. This is in direct contrast to the Perrault version of the tale, in which the always gracious Cinderella finds husbands for her sisters instead.

- According to IMDB, Disney’s Cinderella cost nearly $3 million dollars to produce. If the movie hadn’t been a success, it likely would have been the end of the studio.

- On the topic of Disney, Ilene Woods was selected as the voice of Cinderella out of 309 girls— but she didn’t audition. She’d made some song recordings for her friends, who sent them to Disney without telling her.

- Although I’ve been unable to find any statistical evidence of this, Cinderella is believed to be the most frequently retold fairy tale in history. Some estimate that there are over 2,000 versions of the tale in existence, running the gamut from poetry to big Hollywood productions, Broadwaymusicals to cartoons, picture books to romance novels.

I, for one, am perfectly all right with being a part of that statistic.

Dystopian Challenge

My second challenge for 2012 is the Dystopian challenge.



This challenge is hosted at Bookish Ardour. Hop on over there for more details.

The categories:

Asocial– Choose 5 books to read
Contagion – Choose 15 books to read
Soldier – Choose 30 books to read
Drone – Choose 50 books to read
Conditioned – Choose 75 books to read
Brainwashed – Choose anywhere between 76-135 books to read
Totalitarian – Choose anywhere between 136-200 books to read

Books I have read for this challenge:

1. Legend - Marie Lu
2. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

YA Historical Fiction Challenge

So, I'm in the process of picking out a few reading challenges for 2012 and the first I've picked out is the YA Historical Fiction challenge.



This challenge is hosted at YA Bliss. The rules are as follows:

All Historical Fiction books must be YA or MG
Books don't have to be 2012 releases.
Anyone can join. Please link to a public (web) place I can find you.
You can join at anytime. The challenge runs from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2012

Level 1: 5 books
Level 2: 10 books
Level 3: 15 books

Teaser Tuesday 27/12/11

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should be Reading Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others.
* Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Cinder - Marissa Meyer

She peeled away the spider webs from what had once been the hover's solar generator but was now little more than a plastic shell. A cloud of dust kicked up into her face and she pulled away, coughing.

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

"I am here tonight to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer."

Review: Betrayal - Lee Nichols

Title: Betrayal (Haunting Emma #2)
Author: Lee Nichols
Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Genre: YA, Supernatural
Published (UK): 5th September 2011 (Bloomsbury)
Previous Books in Series: Deception

Emma Vaile is the most powerful ghostkeeper in centuries. Which is great for battling the wraith-master Neos and horrible for her social life. Emma knows fellow ghostkeeper Bennett Stern is her soul mate, but when ghostkeepers fall in love, the weaker one loses all power. And until Neos is defeated, Bennett and Emma can't risk it.

When the temptation of being with Emma gets to be too much, Bennett disappears, pursuing a dangerous path to increase his powers. Heartbroken and alone, Emma tries to lose herself in school. But when the Knell, a secret ghostkeeping society, sends two new ghostkeepers to Echo Point—one a snarky teen guy, the other a British scholar—Emma throws herself into training to battle Neos. But as the team grows stronger, so do the ghosts. And worse, one of their own will betray them. One Emma never suspected. . .

Emma is dealing with a whole lot of issues - some more normal than others. She's in love with a boy she can't be with; she doesn't know where her parents are; her friends blame her for Coby's death ... As well as all of this, she's one of the most powerful ghostkeepers there is and so it's down to her to stop Neos, the wraith-master.

This second book continues pretty much right off from where the first one finished. I liked that there was only a small amount of recapping and that the story got going straight away. The characters are developing nicely and I found myself liking Emma's fellow ghostkeeper, Natalie, more in this book. On the downside there was a lack of Bennett, although this was for plot reasons so it's not all bad - I just wanted to see more of him. There's a couple of new characters in the form of two ghostkeepers sent by the Knell to make up a team with Emma and Natalie. Simon's the older, sensible one. The voice of reason although he's actually the weakest of the ghostkeepers in terms of power. Lukas is more the act now think never type and adds another dimension to the group.

Betrayal adds nicely to the overall plot of the series, moving it along at a good pace with plenty of action. It's also gets the right balance of having a good finish but still leaving you wanting to read more. I'm greatly looking forward to the third book.

In My Mailbox - Christmas Day 2011

In My Mailbox is a weekly event exploring the books received this week and is hosted by Kristi @ The Story Siren. What books did you get this week?

For Review (from publisher unless stated)

Saving Daisy - Phil Earle (Puffin)
Keeper of the Realms: Crow’s Revenge - Marcus Alexander (Puffin)
Magic in the Blood - Devon Monk (Berkley UK)

For Kindle

There's some great Kindle offers on at the moment, so how could I not buy a few!

Magic to the Bone - Devon Monk
Morganville Vampires: Bite Club - Rachel Caine
How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog - Chad Orzel

Other stuff

I generally don't get books for Christmas as people never know what I've already got. I did get a couple of recipe books though and also vouchers for future purchases. I also got some awesome none book related gifts ... best of all an XBox 360 and a food mixer!

Hope everyone has a fantastic holiday!

Holiday Friday!

Follow Friday is hosted by Parajunkee. Just click on the banner below to see the rules and to join in.

This week's question is:
If you had to spend eternity inside the pages of a book which book would you choose and why?

Most definitely one of the Harry Potter books because it's such an awesome world. Who wouldn't want to live in a world in which you can Apparate, play Quidditch and have a pet owl. I'm not sure I could pick which actually book of the series though ... one with Sirius in, haha.

Teaser Tuesday 20/12/11

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should be Reading Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others.
* Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The Iron Knight - Julie Kagawa

The irreverent smirk vanished and his eyes became hard as stone. We stared at each other, inches apart, while the wind picked up and howled around us, stirring up a cyclone of leaves and dust.

In My Mailbox - 17/12/11

In My Mailbox is a weekly event exploring the books received this week and is hosted by Kristi @ The Story Siren. What books did you get this week?

For Review (from publisher unless stated)

Variant - Robinson Wells (Amazon Vine)

Benson Fisher thought that a scholarship to Maxfield Academy would be the ticket out of his dead-end life.

He was wrong.

Now he’s trapped in a school that’s surrounded by a razor-wire fence. A school where video cameras monitor his every move. Where there are no adults. Where the kids have split into groups in order to survive.

Where breaking the rules equals death.

But when Benson stumbles upon the school’s real secret, he realizes that playing by the rules could spell a fate worse than death, and that escape—his only real hope for survival—may be impossible.

Tempest - Julie Cross (Amazon Vine)

The year is 2009. Nineteen-year-old Jackson Meyer is a normal guy… he’s in college, has a girlfriend… and he can travel back through time. But it’s not like the movies – nothing changes in the present after his jumps, there’s no space-time continuum issues or broken flux capacitors – it’s just harmless fun.

That is… until the day strangers burst in on Jackson and his girlfriend, Holly, and during a struggle with Jackson, Holly is fatally shot. In his panic, Jackson jumps back two years to 2007, but this is not like his previous time jumps. Now he’s stuck in 2007 and can’t get back to the future.

Desperate to somehow return to 2009 to save Holly but unable to return to his rightful year, Jackson settles into 2007 and learns what he can about his abilities.

But it’s not long before the people who shot Holly in 2009 come looking for Jackson in the past, and these “Enemies of Time” will stop at nothing to recruit this powerful young time-traveler. Recruit… or kill him.

Piecing together the clues about his father, the Enemies of Time, and himself, Jackson must decide how far he’s willing to go to save Holly… and possibly the entire world.

It's Monday - 12/12/11

It's Monday! What are you reading? is a weekly event to celebrate what we are reading for the week hosted at Book Journey, Post the books completed last week, the books you're currently reading, and the books to be read this week. Please comment or leave a link to let me know what you're reading this week!

Completed last week



Betrayal - Lee Nichols

Currently Reading



The Iron Knight - Julie Kagawa

Up soon



Cinder - Marissa Meyer
Stolen Away - Alyxandra Harvey

In My Mailbox - 10/12/11

In My Mailbox is a weekly event exploring the books received this week and is hosted by Kristi @ The Story Siren. What books did you get this week?

For Review (from publisher unless stated)

Stolen Away - Alyxandra Harvey (Bloomsbury)

For seventeen years, Eloise Hart had no idea the world of Faery even existed. Now she has been abducted and trapped in the Rath of Lord Strahan, King of Faery. Strahan was only meant to rule for seven years, as Faery tradition dictates, and then give up his crown to another. But he won't comply, and now chaos threatens both worlds.

The only one who can break his stranglehold on the Faery court is his wife. . . Eloise's aunt Antonia. Using Eloise to lure Antonia, Strahan captures his wife, desperate to end the only threat to his reign. Now Eloise must become the rescuer. Together with her best friends Jo and Devin, she must forge alliances with other Fae, including a gorgeous protector named Lucas, and Strahan's mysterious son, Eldric-who may or may not betray them.

Cinder - Marissa Meyer (Puffin)

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

It's Monday - 5/12/11

It's Monday! What are you reading? is a weekly event to celebrate what we are reading for the week hosted at Book Journey, Post the books completed last week, the books you're currently reading, and the books to be read this week. Please comment or leave a link to let me know what you're reading this week!

Completed last week



Fracture - Megan Miranda
Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian - Rick Riordan

Currently Reading



The Iron Knight - Julie Kagawa
Betrayal - Lee Nichols

Up soon



The Eternal War - Alex Scarrow

Reviews

The Doomsday Code - Alex Scarrow
Fracture - Megan Miranda

Books Received

In My Mailbox

Posts of Interest

Teaser Tuesday

In My Mailbox - 4/12/11

In My Mailbox is a weekly event exploring the books received this week and is hosted by Kristi @ The Story Siren. What books did you get this week?

For Review (from publisher unless stated)

In Darkness - Nick Lake (Bloomsbury)

Bought

The Eternal War - Alex Scarrow

Betrayal - Lee Nichols

Follow Friday 2/12/11

Follow Friday is hosted by Parajunkee. Just click on the banner below to see the rules and to join in.

This week's question is:
Question: What is your biggest pet peeve when it comes to books? Maybe you don't like love triangles or thin plots? Tell us about it!

Most of my pet peeves are little minor irritations really:
1 - Ridiculous character names. I can deal with one 'unique' name per book, any more really bugs me. Also it needs to fit with the characters personality (well more the parents really as they apparently named them). Sometimes I just long for a character called John or Jane. Obviously fantasy and sci-fi books are allowed a little more freedom with names.

2 - Over description of clothing/appearance. I don't need to know what colour someone's t-shirt is and I really don't care about it either.

3 - So called smart girls who act dumb in front of boys.

4 - Absent parents. I've seen this mentioned on a couple of blogs and it's all too common in YA books.

5 - Lame bad guys. This includes nice vampires and such.

Early Review: Fracture - Megan Miranda

Title: Fracture
Author: Megan Miranda
Format: Uncorrected Proof
Pages: 264
Genre: Young Adult
Published (UK): 5th Januray 2012 (Bloomsbury)

By the time Delaney Maxwell was pulled from a Maine lake’s icy waters by her best friend, Decker Phillips, her heart had stopped beating. Her brain had stopped working. She was dead.

But somehow Delaney survived—despite the brain scans that show irreparable damage. Everyone wants Delaney to be fine, but she knows she’s far from normal. Pulled by strange sensations she can’t control or explain, Delaney now finds herself drawn to the dying, and when she meets Troy Varga, a boy who recently emerged from a coma with the same abilities, she is relieved to share this strange new existence. Unsure if her altered brain is predicting death or causing it, Delaney must figure out if their gift is a miracle, a freak of nature—or something else much more frightening…

Delaney Maxwell should be dead. In fact, she was ... but now she isn't. Making a miraculous recovery after falling into the icy lake, Delaney tries to get back to her normal life. However, not only is everyone around her acting differently towards her, she finds herself being strangely drawn to people who are dying. Then she meets Troy, who's also recovered from a similar experience. With both of them sharing the same ability, Delaney and Troy need to figure out what they're going to do with it.

I thought that Fracture was a really interesting concept; one that I hadn't read anything similar to before. Throughout the book though, I did have some issues with it. While there was nothing wrong with the writing style, I found it hard to identify with Delaney and found myself not particularly caring about her. Her character seemed a little muddled to me. The narrative would say she hangs out with the popular kids and then later in the book she was 'bottom of the social ladder'. She was supposed to be super smart but at times she just seemed dumb. Plus it seemed to be alluded to that she wasn't popular because she was clever which bugged me a little.

Naturally, being a YA book, there was a love triangle (or square actually) but I didn't find myself routing for any of the boys because I just didn't care about any of them enough. There was a couple of adorably cute moments with Delaney and Decker though.

Taken as it is, there's nothing actually wrong with this book, I just feel like it could have been so much more. Delaney doesn't really do anything all that useful with her new ability. Also, I wanted some kind of explanation of how it occurred; more than 'because her brain was damaged' anyway. Maybe I was expecting too much but I felt a little disappointed when I finished reading this book.

Review: The Doomsday Code - Alex Scarrow

Title: The Doomsday Code (TimeRiders #3)
Author: Alex Scarrow
Format: Paperback
Pages: 439
Genre: YA, Scifi
Published: 3rd February 2011 (Puffin)

Liam O'Connor should have died at sea in 1912. Maddy Carter should have died on a plane in 2010. Sal Vikram should have died in a fire in 2026.

But all three have been given a second chance - to work for an agency that no one knows exists. Its purpose: to prevent time travel destroying history ...

In 1993 British computer hacker Adam Lewis finds his name in a coded manuscript that is almost one thousand years old. How did Adam's name get in there ... and why?

Confronted by Adam in 2001, the TimeRiders travel back to Sherwood Forest in 1193 to discover the origins of the ancient message. But when a strange hooded man appears interested in the same thing, they begin to wonder what terrible threat this cryptic link from the past holds for the future ...

Liam, Sal and Maddie are continuing on their mission to save history; to keep events as they are supposed to happen and prevent time shifts in the future. A simple movie poster that wasn't there before, and a warning to watch out for 'Pandora', Maddie and Sal visit a computer hacker, Adam Lewis, who has discovered a coded message in an ancient manuscript. With Adam's help, the team is set on their latest adventure. Liam travels back to the time of the Crusades and Richard the Lionheart. There's a hooded man in Sherwood Forest and Liam must help Prince John regain control in his brother's absence.

I absolutely love the TimeRiders series! Combining science fiction and history is always going to be a winner in my geeky heart. To top it off, Alex Scarrow is an awesome writer who is able to bring a story alive so you feel like you're right there with the characters. Now on the third book of the series, there's a danger of becoming repetitive but although each book follows a similar pattern, with the whole of history to go at, there's no danger of these books becoming boring.

A highly recommended series to anyone which would particularly appeal to fans of Dr Who.

Teaser Tuesday 29/11/11

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should be Reading Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others.
* Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Betrayal - Lee Nichols

I shuddered in my peacoat, the November cold penetrating the thin wool, and watched the crowd through the iron gates. Hundreds of mourners stood in a ragged crescent around the grave.

It's Monday - 28/11/11

It's Monday! What are you reading? is a weekly event to celebrate what we are reading for the week hosted at Book Journey, Post the books completed last week, the books you're currently reading, and the books to be read this week. Please comment or leave a link to let me know what you're reading this week!

Completed last week



GLOW - Amy Kathleen Ryan

Currently Reading



Fracture - Megan Miranda
Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian - Rick Riordan

Up soon



Betrayal (Haunting Emma) - Lee Nichols
The Iron Knight (The Iron Fey - Book 4) - Julia Kagawa

Reviews

Touch of Power - Maria V Snyder