Review--Cinder by Marissa Meyer

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.


I had been hearing lots of good things about Marissa Meyer's Cinder, and the upcoming Scarlet, that I felt like I had to give it a try. But after reading it, I don't feel I enjoyed it as much as I would've hoped. And the bad part is, I don't know why I didn't enjoy it as much as everyone else.

The storyline was good. It's not a retelling of Cinderella, more a tale with Cinderella aspects. Cinder (our Ella) is part Cyborg and Cyborgs are basically second class citizens. If even. They are treated very poorly and the fact that Cinder is half one, she is treated poorly at home. She has her evil stepmother and stepsister, but her other stepsister is very kind and nice to her--much like Jacqueline in Ever After with Drew Barrymore! Cinder loves her stepsister.

Cinder is a very skilled mechanic and when she is hired by the prince, Kai, to fix his robot machine, she doesn't realize a tentative friendship is in the making. Kai and Cinder definitely start out differently than the traditional Cinderella and her Prince Charming. They meet at the very beginning, yet Kai doesn't know she's a Cyborg, and Cinder plans on keeping it a secret for awhile.

But times are tough. There's a plague about and when Cinder's beloved stepsister catches it, she naturally, gets the blame. Her stepmother ships her off like many other Cyborgs to be studied in hopes of finding a cure for the plague.

I guess what lost my interest in part was the whole Cyborgs thing. Not that Cinder was a bad character, she wasn't. I liked her and could connect with her feelings and actions and all that jazz. The plot thickens when there's intergalactic relations going on with the people of the moon, the Lunars. Their queen, Queen Levana is pretty feared. But there is word that Kai plans to marry her--not his idea, but hers--to help with relations of Earthen people and the Lunars.

I think that might have been what lost my attention. The whole intergalactic business. I wouldn't call them aliens or anything because they did seem like people, just with extraordinary talents. Just, for some reason, I was not totally entranced with the story. I wanted to be, believe me. Everything about it was great, just the storyline and its background info, I suppose, fell a little flat for me. I couldn't quite grasp what was going on.

There were some unbelievable revelations at the end that were OMG shocking! I still might give Scarlet ago at some point this year. Because I am curious to see what Cinder is going to do now with all this new information she just learned. Her story is far from over.


Overall rating 3/5 stars