Marissa Meyer is my absolute favorite author. Her ability to retell stories we’ve heard a million times is impeccable as her imagination reshapes these stories into something completely new.

Meyer was born on February 19, 1984 and began her passion for writing very early on. At age 14 she started off writing Sailor Moon fanfics on fanfiction.net (as most of us do, let’s be honest) under a pseudonym named Alicia Blade. In fact, if you’re interested enough, you can still log on to the website and read a younger Marissa Meyer’s works of fanfiction under the same pseudonym. In college, Meyer continued to pursue her passion for writing, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing and a Master’s in Publishing later on.

I first discovered Marissa Meyer when I picked up her first series titled the Lunar Chronicles. In this series, she puts a futuristic spin on many of the classic fairy tales we’ve heard in our childhood: Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White. With cyborgs, robots, a few romantic side plots, and a classic evil queen, a crew of our fairy tale girls soon form to save not only the fate of their kingdom, but the world as well. This series was so well written and put me on an even bigger emotional roller coaster than the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson series combined. I know that’s a big claim, but trust me on this one. Meyer did a fantastic job in her first series; the world building was spectacular and the characters were so easily lovable in their very own way.

I’ve also read one of Meyer’s standalone books called Heartless which is a backstory about how the queen of hearts from Alice in Wonderland became the way she was. Like the Lunar Chronicles, this book had me so emotionally invested that I forgot the queen of hearts was the bad guy! I remember rolling in my seat out of excitement when I got close to finishing the book because of how invested I was! So if you’re looking for a love story in Wonderland, I definitely recommend this book for you.

Meyer has also released another standalone book this year titled Instant Karma and wrote a trilogy about superheros titled Renegades in 2017 which are both definitely on my “To Read Next List.”

If you haven’t heard of Marissa Meyer, or if any of her books sound interesting to you, I definitely recommend you check her out!

The works of Marissa Meyer are available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library.