YMMV / The Lunar Chronicles

• Adorkable:
  • Wolf has his moments when figuring out how things work in the human world, such as trying to open a tomato can with a meat tenderizer.
  • As much as a sexy prince can be a dork, Prince Kaito is still adorable at it.
  • There's also Cress, whose social awkwardness can be very endearing, particularly her tendency to blush and involuntarily squeak when Thorne does something romantic.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Fans are mixed on why Pearl doesn't expose Cinder's secret to Kai, and instead tells him how Peony died. Some think she felt sorry for Cinder. Others think she was milking Peony's death to get some sympathy out of Kai, and didn't expose Cinder to save face.
  • Channary gets some considering she's a posthumous character. There are some fans who believe that her reputation is just Levana's propaganda. There is also the question of if she would have been a loving mother to Selene.
    • This was then blown out of the water by the prequel novella Fairest, which revealed that Channary was the biggest villain of the series. However, despite her awfulness, she seemed to genuinely love Selene and actually be a somewhat decent mother, caring for her herself instead of forcing servants to the way their parents had.
  • Levana might just want to be loved. No seriously, Cress implies she just wants the people of Earth to love her. It comes at the cost of nearly killing half the world, so she presumably wants the love of the survivors. Fairest later confirmed this.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Cinder is Princess Selene. Word of God says that the reader was supposed to figure that out well before Cinder did. The suspense with that plotline was (presumably) supposed to come from wondering when she would find out, who else knew, and what she would do once she did know.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Between the main series and Fairest, Levana appears to hit a lot of the diagnostic criteria for Narcissistic personality disorder, particularly: inflated self-importance (she's convinced she's the only one capable of being Queen of Luna); requiring excessive admiration (she's exceedingly Love Hungry and is largely motivated by needing to feel loved and admired by absolutely everyone); Lack of Empathy; and intense enviousness (she seethes with jealousy over anyone who she thinks is more beautiful/admired/respected, etc. than her, e.g., Winter, Channary, Solstice Hayle).
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Konn Torin has gained popularity for being an Only Sane Man.
  • The Lunar guard Liam Kinney has also gained notice.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Linh Cinder is specifically half-Asian and, as stated by Meyer, supposed to resemble Mew Azama. Despite that, some fans insist that Cinder's white, and often subject her to a Race Lift in fanart.
• Funny Moments:
  • Kai's input on his wedding vows:
  Kai: Delete anything that has to do with love, respect, or joy, and I'll sign on the dotted line.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Shortly before dying of Letumosis, Erland makes a comment to Levana about how much she'd hate to be where he is now, gazing up at a giant mirror – an inescapable reminder of the real him. At face value, this seems like one last jab at the queen's tendency to glamour away her imperfections, which falters in the face of mirrors; we learn in the subsequent prequel that Levana's glamour is actually to hide horrific burn scars.
• It Was His Sled: The fact that Cinder is Princess Selene and Wolf is a Lunar Special Operative are very well known.
• Jerkass Woobie: Adri, who while a pretty major asshole, goes through a lot of trauma and heartbreak in the series.
• Les Yay: Seriously, Sybil seems to have a thing for Levana.
  • The first draft of Cress implies Sybil is just sucking up, though, and that she actually can't stand Levana.
  • There's also some between Scarlet and Winter. After Scarlet is imprisoned on Luna, Winter saves her from execution by asking for Scarlet to be made her "pet", and from then on is insistent on becoming Scarlet's friend, despite Scarlet's initial, understandable reluctance to trust her. For her part, Scarlet eventually comes to feel quite protective of Winter, in a manner not dissimilar from Winter's actual Love Interest Jacin. At one point, she even admits to her heart skipping a beat in response to Winter's famous beauty.
• Older Than They Think: Captain Thorne seems as though he was based on Flynn Rider, but the author confirms that he was developed before the movie came out.
• Robo Ship: After Winter, several fans started shipping Iko (an Android) with Liam Kinney (a Lunar). The short story "Something Old, Something New" in Stars Above contains a brief moment of Ship Tease for the pairing.
• Tear Jerker: Cinder, after watching her younger stepsister die of letumosis minutes AFTER she arrived with the antidote, goes home to find out Adri destroyed Iko's body and sold off her parts.
  • The death of Dr. Erland. He dies in a containment room of Letumosis after introducing himself and saying goodbye to his long-lost daughter.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Princess Winter is arguably being relegated to a secondary character in her own book. Most of Winter focuses on Cinder and her revolution, with Winter's chapters being few and far between, leaving her with little room for Character Development. She's well-liked by the fandom and many wish she had been given more focus.
• The Woobie: Cinder, Peony, Cress, Iko...
  • By the end of Scarlet, if not earlier, Cinder is more of an Iron Woobie. Pun not intended.
  • Evret Hayle.