Review - Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Series: Lunar Chronicles #1

Published by Macmillan Young Listeners

Genres: Young Adult, Sci-Fi, Retellings

Pages: NA (Audiobook)

Rating: 4/5 stars

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.

I am so excited to get my hands on the next book in this series. I can't even handle it. There were some things that I wasn't so keen on, but on the whole it was a fantastic book. I can definitely see why it was so hyped up!

The characters in Cinder were excellent. The eponymous character is one of the best protagonists I’ve ever read, simply because she is so different and unexpected. I mean, the girl is a futuristic cyborg. There is so much room for error there, but Meyer managed to pull it off beautifully. I thought that Cinder’s struggles with her identity and finding her place in society were very well-portrayed, and her relationships with the other characters (particularly Iko and Peony) were brilliant. I love reading about friendship in YA novels, mostly because it so often gets sidelined in favour of romantic relationships. But friends are so important, and it’s something (I think) that more people can really relate to. I also loved the sense of sisterhood between Cinder and Peony, and the contrast between Cinder’s relationship with Peony and that with Pearl. There was one scene that really broke my heart; when Pearl accused Cinder of never really caring about Peony and suggested that she had in fact killed her. It was just made worse when she added that Peony was never Cinder’s sister and that Cinder must be incapable of loving her the way that she and Adri did.

I was less fond of Cinder and Prince Kai’s relationship. I liked it, but it didn’t feel as strong to me as that of the women (and android!) in the novel. I thought Prince Kai was a decent enough love interest, but I was annoyed at how long it took for him to find out Cinder’s secrets (and the fact that she didn’t just tell him in the first place…).

The plot of Cinder wasn't quite as good as I'd have liked it to be. It was an interesting take on the Cinderella story and I liked the extra things that Meyer added (cyborgs, androids, a moon colony of people with psychic powers). I found that I had a lot of issues with decisions Cinder made throughout the novel, particularly when it came to withholding information. The twist regarding Cinder and the Lunar Queen was pretty freaking obvious. I kind of felt like hitting Cinder upside the head and forcing her to put 2 and 2 together, for god’s sake!