Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer (The Lunar Chronicles #1)

onyxdarkling
Feb 6, 2014
2 min read

Cinder takes place in a futuristic world, where cyborgs live as second class citizens to humans. Cinder, a cyborg mechanic, lives in New Beijing with her stepmother and two stepsisters, a slave to their every whim. When Cinder is asked to fix a robot belonging to the crown prince, Kai, she becomes involved with a secret search to find a missing princess who could be the only hope from saving the world from the corrupt lunar Queen Levana, who seeks to add Earth to her domain.

After a terrible accident, Cinder is sent to be a test subject for scientists hoping to find a cure for the rare, fatal disease spreading through the city. Cinder is discovered to be immune, and, more research shows, she is also a lunar "shell" - a lunar born without any magical abilities. She must hide this from Queen Levana at all costs, as the queen hates shells - she cannot use her mind-controling powers on them.

Meanwhile, Cinder and Prince Kai also strike up a relationship of sorts, which terrifies her. Kai is a human, and she is a cyborg - a secret that she believes would disgust him if he ever found out.

This was the first Cinderella retelling I've read, and I was not disappionted. The sci-fi theme was exellent, and the author still manged to maintain many aspects of the original fairy tale. The characters have depth and develop well throughout the story, and the plot will keep readers not only interested, but on their toes. However, there were several story lines that sort of disappeared for long amounts of time, which made the story a bit confusing at times. Overall, four out of five stars. I can't wait for the sequel!