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A review by capturedinwords
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
4.0
My video review: https://youtu.be/x3VYd3y1DCQ
16 year old Cinder lives with her step mother and siblings in the futuristic capital of the Eastern Commonwealth, New Beijing.
Cinder is the most renowned mechanic in New Beijing; a job suitable because, oh right, she is a cyborg. This is a result of an accident at a young age where her natural body wouldn’t have survived. She was fixed up with a computer interface and mechanical body parts, then was taken under the wing of the inventor, Linh Garan. After Garan dies Cinder is left with her cruel stepmother, Adri, and forced to make a living for the entire family.
I thought the description of all of Cinder’s cyborg abilities to be incredibly interesting. She can bring up newscasts and browse the web all within her built in computer system. Just think of the multitasking possibilities! She can also tell when people are lying and receive warnings on her vital signs. However, even though she was a cyborg and everything, I had a hard time believing that a 16 year old was the most REVOWNED mechanic in the whole city. Are there not any other mechanics?? Some with, maybe, a bit more life experience??? I also never imagine Cinder as a 16 year-old. She always seemed closer to 19 or 20 to me. I still thought she was a fantastic heroine though!
The futuristic parts of New Beijing are really emphasized by the presence of port screens/net screens, and hover cars. I also really liked how there was an outspread of a disease (Letumosis) throughout the city and it didn’t involve zombies. I still didn’t exactly get a Chinese vibe from the city though, which was disappointing considering it takes place in New ‘BEIJING’. There was some missed potential to describe some Chinese architecture and maybe even some classic folklore. Later in the story it describes the palace in a bit more detail, which focused a bit more on the Chinese aspects. The whole time I imagined it to look like the Forbidden City which is in Beijing.
The characters were all fantastic, and way more fleshed out than the ones in the original Cinderella story (although I guess that’s a given). Adri is a horrible step-mother, and I wanted to scream at her so many times. Iko was by far my favourite character. She is an android and is somewhat of a family servant. Her personality is hilarious and I really like the friendship between her and Cinder.
Prince Kai is a really interesting character. The original prince charming in the Cinderella story really holds no character at all, but Kai fills in the gaps with a lot. Although I still don’t see any reason for him falling in love with Cinder. It was just a bland ‘insta-love’ situation. Near the end of the book I thought his emotions were portrayed very realistically. There are even a few chapters where it switches to his point of view. I love these chapters the most because they delve into more of the political side, and the ongoing threat of Letumosis as well as the peace between Lunars and everyone on earth.
Oh yes, Lunars. Lunars are humans that colonized the moon and from this attained genetic mutations that allow them to penetrate minds and bend them to their will. Basically they have the power to do Jedi mind tricks. Oh and they can also cast an illusion around themselves to appear more beautiful than they are; something Queen Levana does. Queen Levana is a very very very wicked queen and is the main antagonist to the story. She definitely gives me the chills, but I really like her character for a villain.
There is a lot of foreshadowing of a twist that comes later in the book, which I found to be blatantly obvious. I thought it was so obvious, I actually convinced myself it wouldn’t happen and the author was just trying to make it seem like it would. However when it did happen Marissa Meyer wrote it in a way that was intense, and when combined with a cliff hanger it made the twist all the more better. Still was too obvious though. Overall I really enjoyed the first book in The Lunar Chronicles, and already have Scarlet high up on my TBR.
16 year old Cinder lives with her step mother and siblings in the futuristic capital of the Eastern Commonwealth, New Beijing.
Cinder is the most renowned mechanic in New Beijing; a job suitable because, oh right, she is a cyborg. This is a result of an accident at a young age where her natural body wouldn’t have survived. She was fixed up with a computer interface and mechanical body parts, then was taken under the wing of the inventor, Linh Garan. After Garan dies Cinder is left with her cruel stepmother, Adri, and forced to make a living for the entire family.
I thought the description of all of Cinder’s cyborg abilities to be incredibly interesting. She can bring up newscasts and browse the web all within her built in computer system. Just think of the multitasking possibilities! She can also tell when people are lying and receive warnings on her vital signs. However, even though she was a cyborg and everything, I had a hard time believing that a 16 year old was the most REVOWNED mechanic in the whole city. Are there not any other mechanics?? Some with, maybe, a bit more life experience??? I also never imagine Cinder as a 16 year-old. She always seemed closer to 19 or 20 to me. I still thought she was a fantastic heroine though!
The futuristic parts of New Beijing are really emphasized by the presence of port screens/net screens, and hover cars. I also really liked how there was an outspread of a disease (Letumosis) throughout the city and it didn’t involve zombies. I still didn’t exactly get a Chinese vibe from the city though, which was disappointing considering it takes place in New ‘BEIJING’. There was some missed potential to describe some Chinese architecture and maybe even some classic folklore. Later in the story it describes the palace in a bit more detail, which focused a bit more on the Chinese aspects. The whole time I imagined it to look like the Forbidden City which is in Beijing.
The characters were all fantastic, and way more fleshed out than the ones in the original Cinderella story (although I guess that’s a given). Adri is a horrible step-mother, and I wanted to scream at her so many times. Iko was by far my favourite character. She is an android and is somewhat of a family servant. Her personality is hilarious and I really like the friendship between her and Cinder.
Prince Kai is a really interesting character. The original prince charming in the Cinderella story really holds no character at all, but Kai fills in the gaps with a lot. Although I still don’t see any reason for him falling in love with Cinder. It was just a bland ‘insta-love’ situation. Near the end of the book I thought his emotions were portrayed very realistically. There are even a few chapters where it switches to his point of view. I love these chapters the most because they delve into more of the political side, and the ongoing threat of Letumosis as well as the peace between Lunars and everyone on earth.
Oh yes, Lunars. Lunars are humans that colonized the moon and from this attained genetic mutations that allow them to penetrate minds and bend them to their will. Basically they have the power to do Jedi mind tricks. Oh and they can also cast an illusion around themselves to appear more beautiful than they are; something Queen Levana does. Queen Levana is a very very very wicked queen and is the main antagonist to the story. She definitely gives me the chills, but I really like her character for a villain.
There is a lot of foreshadowing of a twist that comes later in the book, which I found to be blatantly obvious. I thought it was so obvious, I actually convinced myself it wouldn’t happen and the author was just trying to make it seem like it would. However when it did happen Marissa Meyer wrote it in a way that was intense, and when combined with a cliff hanger it made the twist all the more better. Still was too obvious though. Overall I really enjoyed the first book in The Lunar Chronicles, and already have Scarlet high up on my TBR.