Cinder - Marissa Meyer [Review]

Title: Cinder (Lunar Chronicles #1)

Author: Marissa Meyer

Genre: Fantasy, Science fiction, Young Adult.

Published: 2012

Pages: 390

Price: $5.72 USD

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

Buy it: Amazon

Includes the short story “Glitches”

Rating:

★★★★✩

Even though people always say “don’t judge a book by its cover,” the cover is the reason Cinder caught my attention. I knew about this book because I saw a classmate reading it and I liked the cover, I asked her what it was about and I thought it seemed interesting, so I bought it… and I don’t regret it, The Lunar Chronicles has become one of my favorite series!

            Cinder transports us to a futuristic Earth, where robotics and technology has advanced a lot,

Cinder, fanart by lostie815

making possible the creation of space ships, androids, even cyborgs. The story occurs in the city of New Beijing, where Linh Cinder, a 16 year old mechanic, is exploited and humiliated by her stepmother just because she is a cyborg. One day, Prince Kai visits her booth in the marketplace because he wants her to repair his android, and that’s how their paths intertwine. Prince Kai is having a rough moment, his father, the emperor, has the lethal, incurable, and highly contagious letumosis, and also, he must deal with the lunar queen, Levana, who wants to become empress of the Commonwealth, and will do anything to accomplish it. For some reason (I won’t spoil you), Cinder and Kai start seeing each other frequently, and they start developing feelings for each other, but he is being forced by Queen Levana to accept a marriage alliance. If he does marry her, she will give him the cure for letumosis, but if he doesn’t, she will start a war.  

            Cinder shows us a science fiction world where space traveling is a common thing, where humans have colonized the moon, and there they’ve evolved until develop the interesting ability of controlling other’s brain bioelectricity. They can manipulate others to see, feel, or do what they want.

Prince Kai, fanart
by lostie815

            There are so many things I love about this book and I don’t know where to start. First of all, I like the fact that the story doesn’t occur in America or Europe, I think it’s the first book I’ve read located in Asia.

            Marissa Meyer did an excellent job with the world building, it is based in the one we know, but it’s after a Fourth World War. The way she explains how everything works sounds absolutely believable, for example the way Cinder’s cyborg part works.

            The Lunar Chronicles has a vast diversity of characters, something shown since the first book. They all have different personalities and are well developed; you can develop feelings towards them, love them or hate them.

            I think that despite being a retelling of Cinderella it is super different. Cinder uses they key moments of Cinderella, but in an original and interesting way. It’s so different that you sometimes forget that it was based on that fairy tale, I recalled it nearly the end.

            I can’t think of anything I didn’t like of this book, the only thing that comes to my mind is

Queen Levana, fanart
by lostie815

that the beginning is kind of slow, and I wasn’t hooked with it until the second half of the book, but that has an explanation. In the first half Meyer explains a lot about the world, Luna, the relation between Earth and Luna, lunars, and we get to know the characters.

            Something that caught my attention is that it approaches the topic of discrimination, in this case towards cyborgs and lunars, but mainly towards cyborgs as cinder. Despite of being people they are treated as belongings and have no rights.

            In my opinion it’s a really good first book, it has action, an interesting plot, well developed and interesting characters, romance (even though is not the main thing), and definitely makes you want to know what happens next. I highly recommend it :)