Cinder by Marissa Meyer (2012)

It's been a long time since I've picked up a book from the Young Adult section at Barnes & Noble, and actually the only real reason I started reading Cinder by Marissa Meyer was because I was stuck at one of my mom's high school reunion barbecues at her friend's house, bored to death, and one of the daughters had this book lying around. It's hardcover and it didn't have the protective book cover over it and I have an extremely bad habit of judging books by their cover (literally). So I had nothing much to go on in terms of guessing the book's plot, aside from the frilly font of the title. Though judging by the title, Cinder, I correctly guessed that it would be a retelling or a story loosely based off of the fairy tale, Cinderella. But I got hooked straight from the first sentence:

The screw through Cinder's ankle had rusted, the engraved cross marks worn to a mangled circle.

Woah, woah, hang on a minute there. A screw? Through her ankle? Now I've got to keep reading. Right off the bat, I can tell that this is probably going to be the most imaginative retelling of this classic fairy tale that I've ever read, and I have read many. Marissa Meyer's Cinder tells the story of the eponymous character's journey and attempts to escape her miserable life of servitude with her legal guardian and her pernicious daughter, come to terms with her cyborg identity, as well as learn the truth about her past and her bloodline. While I wasn't completely enamored with Cinder all the time, I admit that she was a good, rounded, likeable character. She's headstrong and forthright but not to a fault. Despite her strength and tough-girl attitude, one can clearly see that there's a sensitivity within her and we see these sides of her when she bemoans her cyborg parts and when she grieves over the death of her step-sister (the nice one, not the evil one). Although I usually find electrical mechanics boring and too complicated, Cinder's fascination with machinery and the narrator's description of such wasn't boring at all; in fact, I thought it was rather interesting. Cinder, overall, I thought was a really fascinating character. I got into right from the start when she was described as having machinery body parts and how her brain sorta functioned like a computer and sent her messages that warned her of potential dangers. For example, her system monitors her body temperature and immeidately takes action to restore balance if there's ever the spike or drop in her temperature. Another is that an orange light in her retina sparks whenever someone is lying, which also protects her from manipulation. Quite a feat of science, I'd say. There are downsides, of course; lack of tear ducts leaves her unable to cry and the temperature monitors leave her unable to blush.

And of course what's a Cinderella story with the prince? He was introduced very early in the story actually, which surprised me a bit. The last time I read a story with a prince character such as him was Eon: Dragoneye Return and Pearl Emperor Kygo wasn't introduced until after Eona had passed the Dragon exam competition thing and he didn't even become super important until halfway through the book. But I guess, in a way, I'm relieved that in Cinder, Prince Kai was introduced earlier. I was fangirling when I found out his name was Kai; being the Exotic fangirl that I am, I immediately had this photographic image of Kai of EXO-K as the Prince, which fit in perfectly since the story was set in the futuristic country of the Eastern Commonwealth which is implied to be in modern day Asia, I'm guessing in China. Their personalities seemed to be in discrepancy, however, so eventually the mental image of EXO-K's dancing mahcine wore away. In comparison to Cinder, however, I felt like Kai's character wasn't as developed. Sure, as the prince character, he was portrayed as being polite, noble, kind, handsome, diplomatic, exhausted by his royal duties, and craving friendship. But... that was exactly it. There was nothing too complicated about him, nothing that piqued my interest. He was the Prince of the Eastern Commonwealth and didn't have many characteristics that distinguished him from other prince characters. In Eon, Prince Kygo was equally noble, diplomatic, and handsome, but on top of that, there was a sort of darkness in him; like Kai, Kygo struggled with his princely duties, but his frustrations were more apparent than Kai's. I know it's probably not fair; Goodman's Eon had at least 100 pages more than Cinder to develop the characters, but Kygo wasn't even in the story until it was half-over and he was a more developed prince-character than Kai. Another thing that unsettled me about Kai was how unusually attracted he was to Cinder. I mean, yeah, I know that it's supposed to be a romance story, but if there are 3 other installations to the story why didn't the author leave some of the romance out and saved them for the other books? It just made the romance between Kai and Cinder feel a little rushed and insincere. In reality, they met a total of 3 times by the time Kai felt strongly enough for her to ask her to be his personal guest at the coronation ball, and they were rather short meetings, too, and not much transpired between them, actually. At the end of the book, they were claiming to be in love with each other while I gaped at the book wondering when in the story the falling-in-love bit had happened because I certainly didn't see it. 

Another really interesting character that I got hooked on was the Lunar queen, Levana. In the story, she's the beautiful and enchanting queen of the moon who uses her manipulative powers to rule her country and manipulate them into submission. She can make people feel different things, think different things, make people think her more beautiful than she actually is, and at one point in the story she even tries to manipulate Cinder into shooting herself in the head. So the book makes a great point of portraying how evil she is. But there always little parts in the story that catch my attention, such as when Levana cuts a when someone places a mirror in front of her or when she totally loses it when Cinder tells her she's not beautiful. As with Cinder, the narrator clearly shows us that Levana is an evil woman, but little scenes like those show that there's a weaker, insecure side to her, and it's these little hints that make me want to learn more. Unfortunately, not much is elaborated on when it comes to Levana. 

Aside from the characters, I am totally amazed at how vivid the world Marissa Meyer created for her story is. The Eastern Commonwealth isn't the first time I've read of a fictional place that models itself after Asian cultures, but it is vastly different from the ones I've read. Unlike others, The Eastern Commonwealth bears almost no resemblance to the Asia most people know: you know, the pagodas, the sushi, the bamboo forests, the pandas. Nope, none of that here in New Beijing. The Eastern Commonwealth is extremely high-tech and futuristic with hover crafts for transportation, holographic board games where game pieces can be subsitituted with mini-hologams of celebrities, ID chips embedded in every citizen's wrist, and androids that can do anything from housekeeping to ual favors. Cinder, of course, being the most advanced-tech cyborg in the whole book, was my favorite testimony to progress in the Estern Commonwealth. I've already gone over her cool features likes her machine leg and machine hand, her brain's computer-like system, all that cool stuff. Definitely sets this story apart from other Cinderella stories.

If there's one fault in the book, I guess it would be its predictability. The whole legend behind the disappearance of Princess Selene, heir to the Lunar throne was introduced on page 44 of the novel and by the time I was on page 45, I already knew all of Cinder's dirty little secrets (before Cinder knew them herself, actually). I applaud the author's attempts at being subtle however; the book was written for a younger audience who might not have picked up on those things. 

Still, Marissa Meyer's Cinder turned out to be an intensely satisfying book and it kept thoroughly entertained for the past 48 hours. I highly recommend that you go check it out, and then wait patiently for the next installment in the Lunar Chronicles. That's all for now! ^^