Rave Review: "Cinder" by Marissa Meyer

Quick Summary

Type: Novel, book 1 of The Lunar Chronicles

Genre: Fantasy, science fiction

Back Cover: "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."

Read Time: 3 days

Rating: 4.5 stars

Review

So this was a Cinderella retelling in a cyberpunk setting. I'm of the opinion that fairy tale retellings have oversaturated the market a bit, but this one was a lot of fun.

There were a few things I found a little confusing. For a long while, I was confused as to whether cyborgs were illegal or just discriminated against, and why they were discriminated against. In fact, with the Prince, the Prince's broken robot, the Cinderella elements, the cyborg stuff, the hostile Lunar queen, and the plague, there were a lot of elements and they didn't always mesh well. But for the most part, it was actually easy to ignore those parts where the elements didn't all fit in because the story was fun and easy to read.

The twist of the story was obvious from very early on - pretty much as soon as they mentioned a missing Lunar princess, I figured out that Cinder was the missing princess. The death of her stepsister was also a little disappointing, because we didn't get enough time with the stepsister to form an emotional connection with her so the death didn't hit us as hard as it was supposed to hit Cinder.

But again, it was a fun and easy read, which is why it's rated at 4.5 stars.