Title: Cinder
Author: Marissa Meyer
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Series: The Lunar Chronicles #1
Release Date: January 3, 2012
Pages: 390 (Paperback)
Source: Purchased
Rating: ★★★★½
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.
This book is such an awesome sauce. It is now officially on the top three of my favorite books of all time.OH MY GOSH IT'S SO GOOD!
Anyways, this is a retelling of Cinderella, hence the title, except that she is a cyborg. It's weird, I know, but it works. She has these cool stuff in her system which tells her informations about the things she sees and she could tell if someone is lying and many other awesomeness. The story is set in New Beijing which is like Beijing but new, because it's in the future. She has two step sisters, Pearl and Peony. She also has this little android friend named Iko which has a little bit of a malfunction in its system. Cinder and Iko have a booth in a market where she fixes things because she is the best mechanic in town.
So, in this society there is a plague. It kills people in practically just a matter of days. Then one day, her sister, Peony, got the plague. Cinder was blamed by her step mother and other step sister for Peony's illness because she was with her when she got it. So her step mother shooed her away from their apartment and let the government "have" her. Turns out, Cinder was not so ordinary after all. (I mean, despite the fact that she is a cyborg.)
I love Meyer's writing style. It just flows really nicely and I almost literally could not put it down. It sucked me in almost immediately. There's just so much happening in just 390 pages. It was an insane adventure. The plot is really interesting, I mean, Earth people associating with people from the moon? How awesome is that? You also got this really cool world where everything is futuristic, but also oriental. Does that make sense? That's the way I picture it in my head.
The characters are really great. Our main character, Cinder, is really easy to relate to. She's a really great main character. She's really determined to find the cure to the plague. To cure her sister. Then she met Prince Kai, who is basically every girl's dream. He came to her booth one day and asked her to fix his "very important" android. One day accidentally they meet again and Cinder developed a crush on him. The romance gradually developing because they're not like "You're the one for me. Let's make out." kind of thing. I mean they're friends and their friendship is valuable to each other. That's a nice thing.
Then we have the step mother who just hates Cinder. Cinder is like a pain in the ass for her. But really, her income comes from Cinder's mechanic ability so she can't really get rid of her. I just don't like her, but at the same time, I sympathize her. I understand why she did the things she did. But I don't see that much of character development on the other step sister.
We also have the moon people, or as they call it, The Lunars. Most of them are very hateable (is that even a word?). They are described to be really beautiful, but their beauty comes from the "Glamour". So basically, you see them the way they want you to see them. They have this ability to control minds, like making you think what they want you to think, stuff like that. They have a queen called Levana, and she just wants to rule the world, basically. I hate her. I really do.
The reason I didn't give this book five stars is that it's really predictable. Every plot twist, I could get them correctly. But the thing is, even though I could predict what's going to happen, I kept on reading. Because I want to see how it happened. And I got it right. And I still like it.
I highly recommend this book. It's really great. I cannot wait to get my hands on the second one which will come out in February. I'm so excited! And also you could read the prequel to this book called
Glitches for free.
JUST CLICK HERE. It's set around six or seven years before Cinder, so if you want to check it out, go ahead and do that.
I think that's it for this review. I'm still learning how to not make it so jumpy and weird. I hope you have a nice day! Rizka, out.
