Cinder

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


There was a lot of controversy on my library listserve about this book.  Some loved it, some hated it, and some just quit reading it because they were bored. I think I fall into the camp of those who loved the book.  It was a little bit hard to relate to the characters at first.  The reader is introduced to Cinder, the cyborg, a human with some mechanical wiring and parts.  At first I wondered if I could ever really care about the character, but as I got further into the story, I really did.  As you might guess, Cinder is a modern telling of Cinderella, only Cinder lives as a cyborg with her step-mother and two sisters.  She meets Prince Kai, when he comes to her booth, (she is a mechanic) at the marketplace.  He needs her to repair his broken android.  They are immediately attracted to each other, but she realizes she is a lowly cyborg with a mechanical hand and foot, so she hides that from him as well as her feelings for him.  The story is obviously more complicated than the fairy tale and gets more so as we find out a deadly plague is spreading across New Beijing, and cyborgs are being called as test subjects to find a cure for the plague.  We also find out that the moon's Lunar Queen wants to form an alliance with earth by marrying Prince Kai.  Cinder, as you might guess, is in the middle of all of this.  And, although the resolution to the story was less than I had hoped, I found I really did care about this character, and hope for the sequel.



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