Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

54 reviews

rwnhlfx's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious 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

4.0

Honestly, this book is really fun. I read it & the sequel for a class & I'm thinking about finishing the series on my own time. It does, however, lose a star due to some repetitive phrasing & Meyer's failure to portray an Asian culture in a respectful or believable way.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Police brutality, Xenophobia, and Medical content

Minor: War

noellegrace8's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.75

This is such a cool modern (future, actually??) retelling of Cinderella. She is NOTHING like any Cinderella we've read or watched before. She is a mechnic with a good portion of her body being mechanical in and of itself. Meyer does a fantastic job creating interesting plot points that surprise the reader yet also point them to the original source material of Cinderella. Overall a quick pased, clever book. I can't wait to read the next installments! The few issues I had with the book were just that it was a bit hard to get into at first, especially because some of the characters weren't as interesting as they could have been, and sometimes the word usage was odd, almost like she used the word adjacent to what she actually meant.

I don't include the audio performer in my overall star review, but I'd give Rebecca Soler 3.75/5.0. There isn't much to say outside of her performance falling flat. It wasn't actively bad, but there wasn't enough excitement and variance in her narration to intrigue me; my inner reading dialogue is much more enthusiastic than her performance itself is.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Ableism

Moderate: Blood, Body shaming, Child abuse, Grief, Classism, Bullying, Death, Child death, Emotional abuse, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Minor: Xenophobia, Deportation, Self harm, Car accident, Colonisation, War, Vomit, Misogyny, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Panic attacks/disorders, Murder, Gun violence, Death of parent, Torture, Confinement, and Violence

Those listed in "graphic" are central themes, although the ableism is more of metaphor (Cinder is a cyborg and treated poorly because of it) than a direct commentary. Moderate categories listed are related to the death of a loved one in the plot, a medical research focus due to the epidemic theme, and the aforementioned ordeal of Cinder being cyborg. "Minor" category items are straightforward and not too present in the book.

jadeandherbunny's review against another edition

adventurous inspiring mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Ableism, Blood, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Pandemic/Epidemic, Toxic relationship, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Self harm and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Slavery and War

kal_el_'s review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, Grief, Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Violence and War

Minor: Gun violence

melissaslibraryy's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted mysterious sad 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

5.0

Omg!! The Lunar Chronicles was one of my favorite series back in middle school and being able to reread it the way I’ve always planned too makes me so happy. I forgot how much I loved this book and feeling as though I’m reading it for the first time again makes me live it even more after all this time. If you’re looking for a thrilling, adventurous YA dystopian novel with a romantic side plot, Cinder is the book for you. 1000000% recommend !!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Bullying, Panic attacks/disorders, and War

Moderate: Gun violence, Violence, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Suicide attempt

smileypers0n's review against another edition

adventurous funny medium-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Genocide, Ableism, Child death, Child abuse, Medical content, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Blood, Car accident, Medical trauma, Slavery, Fire/Fire injury, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Self harm, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Mental illness, and Gun violence

elizabeth12's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

5.0

My cousin gifted me this book years ago, and I have tried so many times to read this book. I finally decided to try the audiobook and I was hooked. I think I had a hard time reading it originally because of the plague and the medical experimentation. Some of it made my skin crawl. It's more intense than I was expecting from a young adult book.

I loved the worldbuilding! The world is set 126 years after World War 4, and there's cyborgs, aliens, and androids. It's a very unique version of Cinderella (and there's some Snow White elements), and even if it wasn't marketed as a retelling, the story would still stand on it's own. I'm excited to see how Marissa Meyer expands the world throughout the series. 

This is not a Disney fairytale retelling. This is dark and heartbreaking and reminiscent of older fairytales. The romance between Kai and Cinder is important, but it is not the main focus. 

I'm curious to see how Cinder will deal with being cyborg, Lunar, and royal. I hope we dive more into that in the next books.

I loved this book, and I loved the narration. I'm so excited to read the next book!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic and Medical content

fierygecko's review against another edition

adventurous emotional fast-paced

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

4.5

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Death, Medical content, Pandemic/Epidemic, Terminal illness, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Ableism and Body horror

Minor: Fire/Fire injury and Car accident

parfait52's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Body shaming, Car accident, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Ableism, Gaslighting, Pandemic/Epidemic, Child death, Xenophobia, Medical content, Child abuse, Death, Gun violence, Bullying, Emotional abuse, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Blood, Confinement, Classism, Genocide, Colonisation, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Trafficking, War, Kidnapping, Abandonment, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

lawbooks600's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia

Moderate: Medical content, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Blood

Minor: Car accident, Death, and Fire/Fire injury