Start with Cinder. It is book one of the Lunar Chronicles, it is where every other Meyer series is measured from, and it establishes a structure the next three books extend rather than restart.
The mistake to avoid is starting with Fairest. It is a short prequel about the villain, it is chronologically first, and reading lists that sort by internal date put it at the top — which hands you the answer to a question the first three books are still asking. Read it after Cress, where its publication order puts it, or after Winter.
The Lunar Chronicles, in order
Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, Winter.
Each book adds a heroine drawn from a different fairy tale — a cyborg mechanic, a farm girl in France, a hacker in orbit, a princess on the moon — and keeps every previous point-of-view character in play. By Winter the cast is enormous and the book is roughly eight hundred pages. This is cumulative, not episodic; there is no order but this one.
One honest warning: most readers guess Cinder's secret well before the book reveals it. The series is not built on that surprise, and it does not weaken what follows, but a reader expecting a twist will feel ahead of the book for a while. A second: Scarlet splits the narrative in two and some readers find the momentum drops there. Cress is where the two halves converge and it is the book that converts people.
Where the extras go
Fairest is Queen Levana's history. It is short, it is genuinely unpleasant in places — coercion, obsession and manipulation are its subject — and it works best between Cress and Winter.
Stars Above is a collection of short stories, and it is not optional in the way collections usually are. Read it after Winter: its final novella functions as the send-off for the main cast, and readers who skip it complain about an ending they did not actually reach.
Wires and nerve is a graphic novel sequel following Iko, published as Wires and Nerve. Our catalogue has the first volume only; the second, Gone Rogue, is not in this list, and the story continues into it. Buy volume one knowing that.
After the Lunar Chronicles
Heartless is a standalone about how the Queen of Hearts became the Queen of Hearts. It shares nothing with the Lunar books but the fairy-tale-origin move, and it is markedly sadder than its cover implies.
Gilded and Cursed are a duology built on Rumpelstiltskin and German folklore, in that order. They are the most violent books she has written — body horror, a genuinely high body count, and a much darker romance — and readers who came for Cinder should know the register has changed.
Renegades, Archenemies and Supernova are a superhero trilogy, in that order, about a girl raised by supervillains inside the organisation that beat them. It is a straightforward good-versus-good moral setup and works if you like the genre.
Instant Karma is a contemporary romantic comedy with one small magical conceit and no connection to anything else here.
What is not in this list
The second Wires and Nerve volume, and her later contemporary and superhero titles beyond the ones above, are not in our catalogue. None of the series here is left unfinished by that except the graphic novel.
Choosing these for a younger reader
All of it is published as young adult and the adult readership is substantial. The relevant facts for someone choosing on a reader's behalf: the Lunar Chronicles carries war, on-page violence and a plague; Fairest turns on sexual coercion; the Gilded and Cursed duology is considerably more graphic than the rest. Reading level and interest level are different questions, and you know the reader.
If you want the sequence laid out as a checklist, browse the catalogue.
Follow the full ordered path here: The Lunar Chronicles books in order: where to start with Marissa Meyer.
