Reviews with content warning for Car accident - Cinder

Really creative fairy-tale remake with fun, funny, and frustrating characters that bring the story to life. A pretty light read but touches on heavy topics that are still very relevant today. It’s honestly pretty action-packed but each scene is given the time it deserves. Great on it’s own, but also an excellent first book to the whole Lunar Chronicles series. Disclaimer: I am biased because I read this several times as a young teenager and was obsessed. But it did hold up!

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parfait52's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

This book was a lot of fun! The world-building and characters were compelling, and the plot kept me entertained. It was super predictable, but that's what you get for reading a retelling. I really enjoyed the pacing of this book, as it felt like something important was happening on almost every page. At times, there was so much happening that I would forget about an element, and then it would pop back up in the plot. I look forward to see where all these plot points are going to go.

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lawbooks600's review against another edition

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tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Representation: Asian main character
Score: Seven points out of ten.
So. This was originally going to be the first book I would read from Marissa Meyer. It's now the third after I read Renegades and then Gilded. I enjoyed both, but I'm not rushing to finish the series, and that also applies to the Cinder series since Meyer, as far as I know, can't write immersive world-building or relatable characters. I can't connect to Cinder, Peony or any other characters. It starts with the main character, Linh Cinder, or Cinder for short, a mechanic who lives in New Beijing in the Eastern Commonwealth and nothing much happens to her until, for some reason, Prince Kai goes to her shop to get his robot fixed (I think they call robots androids) then the action builds further when someone kidnapped her and took her to the hospital for some medical experimentation if I got that right. Cinder then discovers that she is 60% human and 40% machine. This begs the question: is Cinder still a human, or is she still a machine? The author left that question for me to interpret, but I think it's the former. Also, there is a pandemic of a plague called letumosis which is like the modern bubonic plague, but other than the fact that people first saw it in North Africa, I don't know where that came from. The mention of World War IV implies the existence of World War III, but details are vague except that afterwards, there were only six countries left and that kicked off the "Third Era." The book slowed from that point, with nothing much happening except Cinder living uneasily and investigating Queen Levana out of all people, which led up to the end. Long story short, there was an epic scene where Cinder lost her mechanical foot, then she is revealed to be the long-lost princess and a cliffhanger. The bonus content was alright, but as I said, I can wait until I'm in the mood to read the following book, Scarlet, but now I'm not feeling like it.

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bookcaptivated's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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marissasa's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Although I find less YA dystopian novels that I like as I get older, this one definitely held my interest with its unique sci-fi elements and the Lunar mutant race of people as antagonists. I thought this first entry into the series was well-written and the main character Cinder's emotions and actions felt true to her personality and her status as a misfit teenager who ends up questioning her entire identity, but as an adult reader you have to keep in mind the book's audience and just roll with it when she acts irrationally. The part I am most critical of in this book is the romance subplot, because it felt like their feelings for each other grew really fast despite having limited interactions in person, although maybe this can be chalked up to the way teenagers fall in love really fast in real life too. I liked the high stakes and danger that was ever-present throughout the book, and although some of the major plot points were predictable, they were written with ample build-up and the explanations following the reveals made sense for the story. I will continue this series and am curious to see how it ties in with the other fairytale-inspired sequels.

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