Author: Marissa Meyer
Edition: Penguin, 2012
Rating: ★★★★★
Synopsis
Synopsis
A forbidden romance. A deadly plague. Earth's fate hinges on one girl...CINDER, a gifted mechanic in New Beijing, is also a cyborg. She's reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's sudden illness. But when her life becomes entwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she finds herself at the centre of a violent struggle between the desires of an evil queen - and a dangerous temptation. Cinder is caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal. Now she must uncover secrets about her mysterious past in order to protect Earth's future. This is not the fairytale you remember. But it's one you won't forget.
Review
Ever since I first saw and heard about this series, I’ve been intrigued and I finally bought it at Christmas, only just now finding the time to read it.
I’ve always been a lover of fairytales. I’m enchanted by the notion of true love, of royalty, of magic, and more recently I’ve fallen in love with the way princesses are being rewritten into warriors, no longer damsels in distress, stuck in high towers. I love how timeless they are and how they are so easily rewritten. I don’t know how Marissa Meyer came to a point where throwing fairytales into a steampunk dystopia sounded like a good idea, but I'm glad she did.
One of the things I loved about reading Cinder was finding and recognising the elements from the original Cinderella. The prince, the stepsisters, the ball, but also the little things, like the foot that replaces the glass slipper and the car that acts as the pumpkin coach.
The second thing I loved was the way Cinder didn’t fall at the prince’s feet. One of my favourite parts of Disney’s live-action revamp of Cinderella was that Ella and the prince were given more interaction, more of a chance to believably fall in love, and I feel like Marissa Meyer did this so well. Cinder’s relationship with Kai wasn’t born out of a girl’s childish crush on the handsome young prince. It was always more than that simply because Cinder was indifferent, at least on the outside.
Kai, while incredibly charming and swoonworthy, took a back seat, giving both himself and Cinder a chance to follow their own stories aside from one another.
Queen Levana is a fairly hideous creation. I love how she is an Evil Queen reincarnate. Although, instead of being beautiful and disguising herself as a hag, she tricks everyone into thinking she’s beautiful even though she sounds pretty ugly in reality, inside and out.
This book is so well thought out, with twists and turns I didn’t see coming. Especially at the end. I thought I knew what Dr. Erland was going to say, but I was WRONG. So wrong. What I thought was way less dramatic than the truth.
While Cinder is a retelling at its heart, it’s also proof of how far you can drift from the original tales while still creating a story that’s recognisable. That’s the best part about fairytales; their potential is infinite.
Now, I’m off to go out and buy every single book in the rest of the series…either that or start rewriting fairytales myself.
Favourite Quote
“The Lunar spacecraft did not appear much different from Earthen spacecrafts, except that its body shimmered as if inlaid with diamonds, and a string of gold runes encircled its hull in an unbroken line.”
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