I know I’m eons behind when it comes to reading this series, but I’ve been making a conscious effort to incorporate more books from my TBR into my regular reading. Hello, book buying ban. Goodbye, new reads that I’m slightly excited about but not enough to actually want to read and not hoard the book forever.
So I decided to read CINDER by Marissa Meyer because it’s been sitting in my TBR for years and I’ve heard so many good things. Don’t you hate it when you hear so many good things about a book that you haven’t read? Does it feel like you’re cheating yourself for not reading it when the hype with up?
Here’s some more about the book:
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.
CINDER is the first book in the Lunar Chronicle series. Much like the other stories in this series, it’s loosely based on the story of Cinderella except in this story she’s part cyborg living in the futuristic Beijing as a mechanic. The story has all the trappings of the fairy tale; there’s the evil stepmother with her wicked stepdaughters. There’s the handsome prince that she stumbles across randomly. There’s even a fairy godmother, but she’s also an android and one of Cinder’s only best friends. However, that’s where the book stop resembling Cinderella.
It’s set in the future. There’s a wild plague killing thousands of people and the Moon (Luna) and the Earth do not get along.
I love a good story with a strong female lead who is more determined to save herself than wait around for the handsome prince. Cinder was definitely the girl that saves herself in the end. Being adopted by her stepmother who didn’t love her, she had to fend for herself. I think in the fairy tale, I found that to be off the mark. Why would someone who doesn’t have anyone who loves her so desperate to find love? You would think that she would grow a thick skin and learn to love herself.
That’s what CINDER delivers here. You’re reading about a girl who was abandoned by everyone that loved her and come to live with someone that couldn’t stand her. Instead of crying about it and desperate to fall in love and get away from those people, Cinder is often found looking for ways to escape. She’s fixing up an old car so that she can use it as a getaway car. She’s trying to make some money behind her stepmother’s back so she has some funds to take care of herself. This seems much more on par with a modern feminine story than the old fairy tale.
I will say that this story was a bit on the predictable side. I figured out early on in the book that Cinder was who she was and her function in the entire story. However, predictability never means that the story is going to suck. It just means that it’s not going to be shocking when you find out that twist.
Marissa Meyer did a great job incorporating the predictable parts right at the moments when you needed to hear it. At one point, I thought my predictions were wrong and then the next chapter revealed everything.
Predictability aside, I didn’t really find that many flaws in this book. I was upset when Cinder was upset. I was rooting for her when she was championing against her enemies. I was also squinting my eyes in hopes of seeing past Queen Levana’s glamour and seeing just how ugly she really is. All in all, a solid story that will definitely run for the next one in the series. I already have the second one in my shopping cart.
- Published 2012
- Published by Square Fish
- 400 pages
- Rating: 4/5 stars
- Purchase Cinder
on Amazon
on Amazon
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