Author: Marissa Meyer
Published: January 3, 2012
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Series: Lunar Chronicles #1
396 pages (eGalley)
Long time no review! It probably seemed like I stopped reading or something, but not true! I have been reading novels. I’ve just been reading very, very slowly because of schoolwork.You know, like only ten pages at a time, that kind of thing.
Anyway, the book I have been reading the past several weeks is Cinder by Marissa Meyer. At the time of this writing, it’s not available yet — I received it as a galley from NetGalley.com for review. I was attracted to this title because 1) I love Cinderella stories and 2) I love science-fiction type stories. The premise of Cinder promised to blend the two together, which I’ve never even considered before as all Cinderella retellings I’ve encountered are either historical or modern, so I was hooked right away and hoped it wouldn’t let me down.
The story takes place far, far in the future. Many of Earth’s countries have joined together to form larger nations, such as the European Union, country of Africa and the East Asia Commonwealth. Also, there’s a “country” on the moon, inhabited by the Lunarians. Our story takes place in the East Asia Commonwealth, where our protagonist, Cinder, is a cyborg mechanic. She was adopted from Europe a long time ago by a scientist/inventor but he died and left her with Adri, his wife, and their two daughters Pearl and Peony. Adri is the typical evil stepmother, who bemoans the fact that she is saddled with Cinder, a “useless cyborg” and makes her do all the chores and be the breadwinner for the family. Pearl is just like her mother. Peony, on the other hand, is the only one in the family who cares about Cinder. Her, and Cinder’s cute little android Iko (who I keep imagining as a pink R2-D2, I don’t know why).
Cinder is approached by Prince Kai one day in the marketplace to repair his personal android, who contains important information regarding Queen Levana and the Lunarians. He suspects the true heir to the Lunar Kingdom, Princess Selene, is still alive and would like to find her to usurp the current Queen, because she’s kind of a tyrant and is threatening war on Earth if Kai doesn’t marry her (only so she can take over the planet, of course!) Cinder and Kai develop an easy going friendship right away, but she hides the fact that she is actually a cyborg from him. Unfortunately, a deadly disease breaks out over the marketplace later and Cinder is sent away by Adri to the royal research labs to find a cure, because she’s immune and she may be the key to the antidote.
So that’s my brief summary of the story. I’m obviously leaving some parts out, but you get the idea. There’s the Cinder and Kai aspect where Cinder struggles with her identity as a cyborg and keeping secrets from Kai; there’s the disease aspect of the story; and lastly, there’s the constant threat of Queen Levana.
One of the things I noticed right away about this story is that it clearly drew inspiration from Sailor Moon. I believe the author even acknowledges this in her acknowledgements page. I thought that was pretty neat — it was one of the favourite childhood cartoons. I think the story did a great job blending the story of Cinderella into a futuristic science-fiction version of the story, even though by the end of the story, it becomes clear that it’s veering off the typical Cinderella story and onto more of a Sailor Moon path. Again, not really a bad thing. It’s great to see the story becoming its own, even if it was based off of Cinderella, but I hope, in the later books, it won’t be too based off of Sailor Moon.
The narration is a bit clunky to me, but definitely goes smoother by the middle of the book. I don’t know why but I found the narrator (who is 3rd person) really jarring in the beginning. The narrator switched between being objective-ish and telling me exactly what was on Cinder’s thoughts a number of times. It was kind of strange. I don’t know how to describe it but it went away by the middle of the book, so I’m not going to make a big deal about it.
One thing about the plot I want to mention is that it is rather predictable. I foresaw the twist in the story from the very first chapter. It was so obvious to me that I kind of wished the story didn’t try to pretend it was a secret because there wasn’t much of a point when the reader knew what was coming since the beginning.
The characterization was pretty good. I wouldn’t say they were super deep or anything, but they were definitely likeable. The idea of Cinderella as a no-nonsense, cyborg mechanic is definitely a new twist to the story and I quite liked her. Prince Kai, Adri and Pearl did suffer a bit, but overall likeable as well. Their characterizations weren’t that special as they were just the overused kinds, such as the handsome prince who internally struggles with ruling the kingdom, always trying to do the right thing. It’s been done to death, but it is a very safe choice for these characters, and overall, I still liked them. I did particularly like the androids, which is pretty ironic as their entire character is just from a personality chip.
I also thought the relationship between Cinder and Kai was well written. Kai and Cinder do end up liking one another right away, but it’s not what I would call Insta-Love. They had crushes on each other and didn’t really want to admit it, that sort of thing, which to me, is much more realistic and allows time for their relationship to develop and mature, rather than just thrusting us straight into, “They are soulmates and love one another and will die for one another!” I think a lot of YA romances tend to do that, and irregardless if that is a good message to send to readers or not, it’s plain silly. So I was really glad that Cinder and Kai actually had a friendship first. In fact, by the end of the novel, they’re still not “together” or even admitted they like one another. Which again, makes sense. If you plan to have the book be a series, why cram all the romance into the very first book? You’ve got time to spread it out, so use it to make a meaningful relationship between the characters.
Overall, this is a great book to read and I’d definitely recommend it, especially if you like fairy tale retellings, or you’re a fan of Sailor Moon! I will be sure to keep an eye out for the next book in this series.
My Rating: 4/5
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