Cinder by Marissa Meyer: A Review

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.

Looking for Alaska by John Green: A Review

Title: Looking for Alaska

Author: John Green

Publisher: Speak

Series: Standalone

Release Date: December 28, 2006

Pages: 221 (Paperback)

Source: Purchased

Rating: ★★★★

Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter's whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" (François Rabelais, poet) even more. Then he heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

After. Nothing is ever the same.

Best 2012 Reads

Hey, guys. It's almost the end of the year, so I guess I will present you my top 12 reads in 2012. This year was pretty good for me in the reading-land. I read around 40 books. That's exciting :)  Here goes the list!

PS: It's in no particular order. Enjoy!

1. The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games #1)  by Suzanne Collins

 

Do I really need to explain this? Everybody knows this book. It's like the mother of all dystopian new releases. I am kind of late by reading it in 2012. But it's better late than never, right?

2. The Emerald Atlas (The Books of Beginning #1) by John Stephens

It's a middle grade book. The story follows three siblings going from orphanage to orphanage after they are "removed" from their house one Christmas Eve, until one day, they stumbled upon an adventure.

It's really good, guys. I highly recommend you guys checking it out!

The 25 Book Challenge: Finished!

Hiya, people. It's been a long, long time since I posted here, no? I don't really know why. I am so, so, so sorry. Things have just been quite insane here in real life land, I guess. I've been busy with school work. I finished my semester exam a few weeks ago. I've been so busy with my school choir, too. We got so many events to perform in and it feels very nice. We just perform in our school annual event, it went really well. I'm quite happy about it.

So, about the book challenge, I FINISHED IT! Whoa. I don't even know what to say about it. I feel really accomplished. You don't believe me? Well, I have a proof here:

Look at it. Just look at it. How beautiful, I know. I can't even. I know I might be really lame compared to the people in the book community who are doing, like, 100 book challenge. But, I don't care. This is my first time doing a book challenge. EVER. I might as well be proud of what I've accomplished.

This is what I've read throughout the year:

                    

I think that is it for today. I've been planning on getting back into blogging and blog at least as much as I used to. I hope I could do it. Wish me luck! See you guys on my next post!

Oh, and MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL!!!

xo,
Rizka

Zyuranger: A Journey

Oh My Nugget. I can't believe what just happened. I fricken finished Zyuranger. I've watched them all. Every single one of them. 50 episodes of them. This very day. December 15. What.

I know you might think, "Oh, whatever. It's just 50 episodes. I could watch them, too." No, guys. No. Absolutely not. Zyuranger is a journey to me. A very long journey. Here goes the story.

I forgot how I got my first VCD of Zyuranger. I think it was given to me by my cousin or something. I was about four years old at the time. Fricken four years old. I did not know anything back then. So I was just like, "Meh, I'll watch it." Then I watched it and guess what? I liked it. A lot. So, I went to my mom and asked her to buy me more of Zyu VCDs. She said yes.

The very next day, I think, my mom gave the VCDs to me after I went back from school. I was stoked. She only bought 3 of them, so I got 4 in total. I immediately watched all of them. All of them. In one sitting. It's quite unusual to see me inside the house when I was a kid. I usually go outside to play after school. That day, I just sat there in front of my TV. The episodes were in Japanese. There was subtitle, yes. But do you really think a four year old could read that fast? I don't.

After I finished watching them, I was overwhelmed. What a cool story (even though I didn't really understand what it meant. I just knew I like it.) I really, really loved love it. I started to watch them every single day after school. I watched it over and over again. It's just so awesome. I even dragged my sister, who was only one year old at the time, to watch it with me. Showing her how awesome it was.

Then, about twelve years later. I was in my parents' house for the holiday. I was just looking for something to watch in the VCD/DVD drawer.  And then there it was. My old Zyu VCDs. I was like, "OMG! It's still alive! After twelve years! Imma watch them again!" There was only three of them left. The third one is missing. I don't know where it went. So, that very day, I set up our VCD player, plugging off my brother's PlayStation from the TV and watch the heck out of it. I watched it in front of everyone. My mom was like, "Why are you still watching that? You're sixteen." I just rolled my eyes at her. So, I just watched it right there. People coming in and out, looking at me weirdly. Then came my sister from her room. She was like, "I've got nothing to do, so I'm just gonna join you here." My brother and my cousin joined in, too. Guess what? They liked it.

The evening of that day, I looked through the interwebs to find anyone who has a subtitled episodes because obviously, I don't understand Japanese. So I looked and looked and BAM! This person has it. I was beyond happy. It was not finished at the time. He was still working on it. So I downloaded the ones available and watched it on my sister's laptop. Because I didn't bring mine.

A few days later, I went back to the city where I go to school. I eagerly waited every single week for the subtitled episode to come out from that website. Until one day, all of the are out. All 50 of them. I was asdfghjkl. I can't even say anything. And this very day, it's even more asdfghjkl. I don't even know anymore.

I want need to say thank you for all the people that kind of introduced me to this series. Without these people, I would not have twelve years of awesome. The person who gave me my first Zyu VCD. I'm sorry I can't remember who you are. My mom, for buying me the rest of them and letting me watch it every single day. My sister, who didn't understand a thing but watched it with me anyway. And for letting me watch these on your laptop, CHEERS TO YOU! My brother, for accompanying me watching these through the night. MegaAnon for providing me us with subtitled episodes.

Last but absolutely not least, thank you to Zyuranger. It's been a wonderful journey watching it. I got an awesome childhood by watching it. I laughed, smiled, screamed, even cried watching it. And it was wonderful. It didn't make sense sometimes, but it was still a great time. Zyuranger will always has a special spot in my heart. Again, thank you so much for this journey. It was beautiful :)

Keep on fighting, Kyouryuu Sentai Zyuranger!

With love,

RIzka