Cinder review

Cinder

(Lunar Chronicles #1)

 

By Marissa Meyer

 

About
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.

Source: Goodreads

My rating: 4.75/5

My thoughts:
I am glad that this book has lived up to the hype. Book bloggers everywhere kept recommending Cinder to me, and only when I went on holiday was I able to read it.
A brilliant spin on Cinderella, Cinder is a cyborg, which from my understanding means that she is semi-robot. She is the best mechanic in town and meets the Prince when he comes to get something fixed from her.
Yes, Cinder lives with her stepmother and two stepsisters, but one stepsister is very kind (although the others are evil, just like in the classic fairytale).
Yes, there is a ball to which Cinder is invited, and her stepmother does not allow her to go, so she crashes it! But in this story, Cinder does not transform into a beautiful princess but ends up going in a muddy dress and grease stained gloves! My favourite part was when instead of Cinder's glass slipper falling off, her entire robot foot comes off!

I was just trying to compare the characters in Cinder to those in Cinderella, and couldn't think of anything to compare the birds and mice that help Cinderella get ready for the ball with. But then I remembered the robot Iko! Loved this book, I am sure you will too...

Zed (:

Favourite Quotes

(Scene where Peony wants to go to the Junkyard with Cinder and Iko).
"Really, can I? Sounds exciting."
"It sounds dirty and stinky," said Iko.
"How would you know?" said Cinder. "You don't have scent receptors."
"I have a fantastic imagination."

"You don't really think this will save Peony, so don't pretend this is about her. She has days. The chances of them finding a cure before-"
"Then my only mistake was in waiting too long to be rid of you," Adri said, running the washcloth between her fingers. "Believe me, Cinder. You are a sacrifice I will never regret."

He was the fantasy of every girl in the country. He was so far out of her realm, her world, that she should have stopped thinking about him the second the door had closed. Should stop thinking about him immediately. Should never think about him again, except maybe as a client-and her prince.
And yet, the memory of his fingers against her skin refused to fade.

Kai squeezed his eyes shut and chafed them with his fingers. Even knowing that it was coming, that his father was sick with this incurable disease, it still made no sense. All that had just been lost, taken so quickly. Not just his father. Not just the emperor.
His youth. His freedom.

"E-excuse me?"
Kai cleared his throat. Stood straighter. "I assume you are going to the ball?"
"I-I don't know. I mean, no. No, I'm sorry, I'm not going to the ball."
Kai drew back, confused. "Oh. Well...but...maybe you would change your mind? Because  I am, you know."
"The prince."
"Not bragging," he said quickly. "Just a fact."

"I knew you liked him. You pretend to be immune to his charms, but I could see the way you looked at him at the market." Iko rubbed at the lipstick, smearing it across her blank white chin.
"Yeah, well." Cinder pinched her metal fingers with the pliers' nose. "We all have out weaknesses."
"I know," said Iko. "Mine is shoes."

"I don't want to tell you how to be a prince, but shouldn't you have some bodyguards or something?"
"Bodyguards? Who would want to harm a charming guy like me?"

Kai inched toward the table again. "Come on. I can't take you to the...B-word; I can't take you to lunch. Short of my unplugging the processor on one of my androids, this could be the last time we ever see each other again."
"Believe it or not, I'd actually kind of resolved myself to that fact already."

Clearing his throat, Kai murmured, "You have no idea how to dance do you?"
Cinder fixed her gaze on him, mind still reeling. "I'm a mechanic."
His eyebrows raised mockingly. "Believe me, I noticed. Are those grease stains on the gloves I gave you?"

Queen Levana would come for her, and she would be executed. That was her fate. She'd been resolved to it. She'd been prepared for it. Not to be an heir. Not to be a queen or savior or a hero.
It would be so simple to let it happen. So simple not to fight back.