A review by nidorina
Cinder by Marissa Meyer

adventurous fast-paced
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Fast-paced and fun with pretty prose that demands intimate familiarity with the genre from the reader if any visuals at all are going to be had, because it has little description to offer. Predictable throughout, even besides the fact that I know how Cinderella goes, but still enjoyable.  The cultural mishmash of the setting felt strange at best and sometimes approached vaguely offensive, but I'm not in any place to speak definitively on that. The romance was absolutely insipid, without any chemistry or substance; Cinder's attraction to the prince felt no different than her fourteen-year-old sister's celebrity crush. The love interest doesn't stand especially well as his own character, either, and I spent his chapters desperate to get back to Cinder's much more interesting perspective.

Despite having a lot of complaints about this book, I thought it was a very exciting read! I blitzed through it in a way I haven't with a book in a long time. This author's pacing is flawless, and the concepts the book is built on are incredibly interesting. If I didn't have to deal with the dull romantic plot with a dull love interest, or if the book was willing to offer more substance about them, I'd be hungry for more of how they're built. Ultimately, though, the book didn't have a ton of merit on its own except as a setup for a sequel that I don't intend to continue with.
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