Cinder by Marissa Meyer Review

Cinder

By Marissa Meyer

Book one of The Lunar Chronicles

My Rating: ★★★★☆

 Genres: YA Fiction, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Romance

"We all have our weaknesses."

"I know," said Iko, "mine is shoes."

Cinder is a cyborg - a part human, part android hybrid - which in the society she lives in, Earth a long way into the future, makes her an outcast. She is often looked down upon and discriminated by other humans, even her guardian, who she was left with after adoptive parent died of a deadly plague named letumosis. However, Cinder being cyborg has granted her a talent for mechanics, and she has slowly risen to a position as one of the best in New Beijing, where she lives with her guardian and two step-sisters. She is famed enough that even Prince Kai has heard about her, and one day comes to her booth at the market, asking her to repair his android. 

Cinder is pleased by the offer, and happy to repair the Prince's android and impress him in the process. Yet just days later, her youngest sister and only true friend Peony falls ill with letumosis, the same plague without a cure that took the man who adopted her and has been slowly killing across the Earth. Her step-mother, who has always resented Cinder's place in the family, blames it on her and volunteers her as a test subject to find a cure for the disease as revenge, sending her to a certain death. 

But what is found out about Cinder by the head researcher, Dr. Erland, is something that pushes her even further away from fitting in in New Beijing, something that others would want her dead for. Cinder will never be able to return to the life she once had. 

They were beautiful. The most beautiful things she'd ever owned. 

But if there was one thing she knew from years as a mechanic, it was that some stains never came out. 

*spoilers ahead*

Cinder is one of those books that I've seen a couple of times and never got around to reading it, so I'm  happy I've finally managed to. I didn't start this book expecting it to have beautiful language or a completely unique storyline, and I got what I was expecting. It's loosely based off of the classic fairytale 'Cinderella', and you can certainly spot the similarities between the two stories: an 'evil' step-mother, two step-sister's, an ball that the protagonist is forbidden from attending, and, of course, a prince that serves as the love interest for the protagonist. But although there are quite a few similarities between 'Cinder' and 'Cinderella', the author has also made some little tweaks to the plot, which have vastly improved the story. I liked that Peony (Cinder's youngest step-sister) wasn't as bad a person as her mother and older sister, instead being Cinder's only friend, which made it a lot sadder when she died just before Cinder was able to give her the cure for her letumosis. It was also nice that Cinder was immediately head-over-heels in love with Prince Kai, and instead struggled with the dilemma of revealing that she was a cyborg (and later Lunar) with him. 

Unfortunately, I did find the book a bit predictable. It was quite easy for me to work out the main plot-twist of the story, that Cinder was actually Princess Selene, the lost heir to the Lunar throne, presumed to be dead at the hands of her aunt, Queen Levana. I worked this out around when she had finally fixed Nainsi and heard the end of Nainsi's conversation about the Princess Selene. Obviously, the predictability of the story made it a little less exciting to read, since I'd pretty much worked out everything that would happen next, so I was a little less motivated to continue reading the book.  Adding on to this is that the book isn't written in a way that particularly stood out to me: Cinder has a pretty average narrative voice in that it didn't bore me, but I wasn't impressed by its simplicity either. Again, it was a bit of a downer, but not so bad that I had to stop reading the book because it was that terrible. 

So, all in all, Cinder wasn't too bad. I got what I was expecting: a quick, fun read. I did enjoy the book and am going to continue reading the series, which will hopefully improve over time. I'd recommend reading Cinder during the present lockdown situation as it's got a distracting futuristic world, but also focused on a world going through the same problems that we are currently facing, which was  insightful, and made me feel a lot luckier to have the measures protecting me that Cinder and Peony did not have. I'd recommend Cinder as fun read, that's good for filling in if you're in a bit of a slump for sci-fi and fantasy fans.  

"I will do whatever needs to be done to ensure the well-being of my country. I will do whatever needs to be done to keep you all safe. That is my promise."