Cinder by Marissa Meyer-Teen book review

Quick Facts

• Author-Marissa Meyer
• Pages-390
• Genre-Science Fiction
• Series-The Lunar Chronicles book 1
• Age-11 to 16

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

My Rating: 3 stars

I have always enjoyed Fairy Tale retellings so when I heard of Cinder, I knew I had to get my hands on it!

Cinder had an interesting cast of characters, ranging from an evil alien queen to a robot best friend. As unique as this cast of characters was, they seemed to lack some dept, so I had a hard time getting excited by them. The romance between Cinder and Prince Kai was good but nothing exceptional, I never felt that spark between them. One thing that really bugged me in Cinder was how the robot had a personality, and wants like a human, it just didn’t make sense to me that a robot would have emotions like a human. In all the characters fell short of my expectations, maybe if they had more depth to them I would have enjoyed them more.

Marissa Meyer did a fantastic job developing her world full of humans, aliens, androids, and everything in between. I enjoyed learning about the Lunars (the enemy aliens), the cyborgs, and seeing how all the pieces came together in a futuristic China. The cyborg elements of Cinder were especially well developed, Marissa Meyer had everything figured out from the way Cinder could call people just using computer in her mind to the storage compartment in her leg. I was hoping to see a little more Asian influence in Cinder because it was set in futuristic China, but there were only a few references here and there to the food and the clothing. The rest of the setting was very well thought out, Marissa Meyer did an especially good job incorporating the futuristic elements into the setting, such as using androids to take care of people sick with the plague.

Cinder was definitely an interesting and original take on Cinderella, with Cinder being a cyborg. While Cinder kept many of the key events of Cinderella, Marissa Meyer definitely took her own spin on things to fit her futuristic setting. I wish that there had been a few more Cinderella elements in Cinder because it felt like a loose Cinderella retelling to me, and I missed some of my favorite parts of Cinderella. The plot felt a little bit predictable, I guessed the big twist by the middle of the book. The ending leaves off with a cliffhanger and promises an exciting sequel, but Cinder finished off a little abruptly for my taste.

I was not totally impressed with Cinder, nothing about it really seemed to wow me, but it was a good book. I may pick up the next book in the series, Scarlet, just to give the series another chance, but I am not sold on the series.