Book: Cinder
Author: Marissa Meyer
Genre: Science Fiction/ Romance/ Dystopian
Pages: 387
Published: January 3rd, 2012
Summary: 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.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
"Even in the Future the Story Begins with Once Upon a Time."
All I can say is I'm in fairytale bliss. The idea for this story came to pass when the author, Marissa Meyer, decided to rewrite a classic fairytale story, but with a twist. Instead of losing her glass slipper at the ball, Meyer decided Cinderella should lose her whole foot. Yes, the whole foot. And thus birthed the ingenious idea of Cinder.
I love this story for a plethora of reasons. The first being that it hooks you in. Even reading the inside cover flap made me want to know more, and that is truly something. I don't know if I had ever been so excited in my life to read a book. And it most certainly did not disappoint. The character of Linh Cinder is so far from the "bunned blonde" Disney princess that we all once knew and envied. No. Cinder is her own person. She is her own story. She is a mechanic who works in the flea market, maintaining a real job. I also enjoyed the fact that she was actually very close with one of her step-sisters, Peony. I liked how she had real interactions with her step-sisters and the step-mother was more of a supporting role. Unlike the original, Cinder has a lot to deal with and her step-mother didn't really make the cut. Needless to say she wasn't the main antagonist in the story and I kind of liked that. It opened the plot up to more possibilities and new heights that this character could reach.
This book was chock-full of surprise "OMG!" moments. This had to do a lot with her relationship to Prince Kai (which I will address next) and the on-going battle with lumetosis (a disease that is plaguing New Beijing) and The Lunars. Queen Levana was just the right amount of wicked and cruel without being too cheesy. That's another great point. This book does not show any sign of cheesiness whatsoever, which can be very difficult when dealing with a classic fairytale. Which brings me to yet another point...
Cinder and Kai. Damn, this was just perfect. Not the usual Cinderella/ Prince Charming pair you're used to. I was pleased when Meyer developed the character of Kai almost as much as Cinder. He had just as much on his plate as Cinder. Dealing with Levana, lumetosis, preventing war, not to mention always running into a certain cyborg...:) But what I really enjoyed about these two was that they both seemed to stand up for each other, as equals. You don't get a lot of that lately. You also don't get a lot of cyborgs lately either... Also, with Cinder, when she makes up her mind, she makes up her mind. One part of the story, Kai is asking Cinder a question (no spoilers!) and her answer remains the same each time he asks her. In result, this annoys Kai, but also kind of entices him. No one's ever said no to the Prince!
In summation, I could ramble on and on and on and on... and on about how great this book is, but you get the idea! I would prescribe one dose of Cinder by Marissa Meyer to any fairytale lover with a twisted imagination.
Read it. Love it. Live it.
- stELla
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