Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Series: The Lunar Chronicles #1
Published by Fiewel and Friends on January 3, 2012
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Science Fiction
Pages: 395 : Hardcover edition
Source: I own it!
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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.

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I’ve met Marissa Meyer twice this year, and both times I had to hang my head in shame and quietly admit that I had not read any of The Lunar Chronicles (typical series phobia).

 

Can you see the regret in my eyes? I can.

And I probably would have continued in not having read at least Cinder if it weren’t for my Theories of Writing class. We’re doing a final project in which we have to pick an old established “classic” novel (mine was Frankenstein) and then a new novel that we are then going to “pitch” to a school board and schools as something that high school students should read. So this is my modern choice because you know, created murder beings and cyborgs go well together.

Anyway, I fell so deeply in love with this book, y’all. Cinderella is my all-time favorite Disney Princess/story so I knew this was going to be a hit with me no matter what, but there’s also so much else going on. POC main characters, extensive world-building, kick ass heroes/villains, the moon (!!! The moon is awesome okay. Just ask Emily, I have an entire tag on Tumblr devoted to my dumb space obsession).

#me

So thank you to everyone who ever recommended this to me (cough, cough, Matthew and Sam, who are the first to come to mind). I finished this in two sittings and it would have been one if I didn’t have to deal with dumb life things called “sleeping”, “working”, and “going to class”. Psh.

If you’re like me and for some reason haven’t picked this up yet, by the stars, DO IT ALREADY. It’s great! You won’t regret it. Now I have to impatiently wait for Scarlet to get to my library. Once it arrives I’ll be walking in like:

ALSO NO ONE TOLD ME THAT IT ENDED ON A CLIFF-HANGER SO UGHHHHHH.