Cinder (Lunar Chronicles #1)

Fairytale retellings are notoriously difficult to pull off – at least so far as this reader is concerned – but Marissa Meyer managed to successfully do just that by expanding on the humdrum classic that is Cinderella with a fresh cast, captivating setting and world-building, and an extraordinary plot.

When I think of Cinderella, I think of a perky, blonde-haired, annoyingly chirpy girl who sings to birds. What I don’t think of? Cyborgs. But once I realised that’s exactly what Cinder is, I quickly fell in love with the novel. Cinder is one of the most amazing protagonists I’ve come across in YA fiction. Aelin Galathynius? I don’t know her.

Cinder is a mechanic with a wry attitude that made me laugh out loud. She is feisty, damaged, and wants to be normal more than anything. Cyborgs are detested in Cinder’s society and Cinder has never fit in, even within her step-family. Her stepmother, Adri, despises everything about Cinder and is cruel to her. Pearl, her stepsister, is mean and spiteful. But Peony, her sweet stepsister, genuinely loves Cinder and wants the best for her. And Iko, the family’s personal robot, adores Cinder. Cinder goes through some fascinating character development as she comes to terms with who she is, and learns to accept what she has become.

I had mixed feelings about Kai, the “Prince Charming” of the story. There were many moments I, like Cinder (and Iko and everyone else) fell for him, but just as many where I wanted to, for lack of a better term, punch him in the face. His interactions with Cinder were written to perfection – you could practically feel the chemistry between them. And while he was the romantic interest, that wasn’t his only role like the prince in the original story. Prince Kai genuinely cares for his people and would, literally, do anything for them. At times, this includes making some hard decisions, although he thinks they are for the right reasons.

The plot was ingenious, and I’m a little jealous I didn’t come up with something like this myself. But what impressed me the most was the world building: set almost 150 years after World War IV, the world is split into seperate kingdoms and presidencies – a global Union with one common enemy: the moon; or rather, the people who live on the moon. Levana, the Queen of Luna (moon), is set to wage war against Earth and the only thing that will stop her is marriage to Prince Kai. Levana is a vindictive and unforgiving queen who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. I really look forward to seeing what else she does in the next novel – you guys all know I love the villain.

Meyer’s writing was astounding, and the characters were incredibly well-written. They were fully fleshed out characters, with distinctive personalities. Even the characters I hated I had to admit were real. The story also progressed perfectly, and the scenes, as well as pertinent information, were paced out very well.

I have had Cinder on my TBR longer than any other YA novel. I have been meaning to read this book for years, and I’m so glad I finally got the chance. I can’t wait to read the other novels in the series. If you haven’t read Cinder yet (which I doubt because I’m the last person in the world who has read it), do so immediately. You are in for a wild ride.

This review can also be found at http://fortheloveofbooksreviews.blogspot.ca/2016/09/cinder-by-marissa-meyer.html


In this retelling of the Cinderella story, Cinder is a cyborg mechanic living in New Beijing. Adopted by a man who died years ago, she is left with her hateful stepmother and two stepsisters. Being a cyborg comes with many tensions and inconveniences, including prejudice from fellow citizens and the cyborg draft, an initiative to help the scientists of New Beijing find a cure for the plague that has devastated the world.

Things change when Prince Kai approaches her, asking Cinder to fix his android. What starts as a business encounter turns into something more as Cinder faces new struggles and learns of hidden truths that could change everything.

I was intrigued by this book's high ratings and seemingly endless praise. I finally decided to pick it up, and I can conclude that it is one of the most original, enjoyable and riveting books that I have ever read. I was skeptical at first, as stories of cyborgs and androids generally aren't included within my usual reads, but I must say that I agree with all the five-star ratings and raving reviews.

The world-building in this book blew me away. I was completely and utterly engrossed in the world of New Beijing, and all of the social norms, prejudices and political issues that revolved around it. I feel that in a way, it mirrors our world: people are quick to judge those who are different (like many judged the cyborgs), people become desperate in hard times (for example, times of illness), and of course, there was the tricky and intriguing world of politics. All of these issues were portrayed in a way that made them seem incredibly realistic despite being dystopian and within the realm of science fiction, and this added a whole new dimension to the reading experience that I feel many books, unfortunately, lack.

This was a refreshing retelling of Cinderella. The use of cyborgs and "hovers" and extraterrestrial beings made for an original tale and a nice break from the more fantasy-oriented retellings of fairy tales. Cinder herself was a perfect combination of the traditional view of Cinderella - mistreated, hopeful and pleasant - and an original personality. I hope that readers get to see more of her in the next book!

All of the other characters, including the stepmother, stepsisters (one friendly and one not-so-friendly) and the prince fulfilled their roles from the original fairy tale, however the author also went above and beyond to make them unique and much more than just overused, stock cliches. The combinations of the characters, unique twists and the world itself brought the book to life as I read it and I never wanted to put it down!

While there were some twists that I could definitely see coming, this didn't take away from the reading experience at all. Any disappointment that came from being able to guess some of the big reveals was erased by the author's writing style. I read it for hours on end without needing to take a break, and the time seemed to fly. I was sad when I flipped to the last page, because I don't have the next book yet!

I recommend this to fans of YA and science fiction. Even if you're not a big fan of science fiction, give this book a try! You won't regret it.

Cinder is a cyborg and her stepmother hates cyborgs, you know what that means?

Cinder is treated like a slave doing the chores and working as one of the best mechanics in New Beijing just so that she could give all of the money to her stepmother. She's feed up with her life, with the way she's treated like a slave by her stepmother and a nuisance to her stepsister Pearl, the only thing that's keeping her from cutting out her ID chip and running is her other sweeter stepsister Peony and her friend who also works for her stepmother, the perky and stylish android Iko. But then something else occurs the prince disguised turns up to her shop in urgent need of a repair of his android. Cinder like every other girl in Beijing instantly finds her self crushing on the nice prince, who seems to like her as well, to bad he doesn't know that she's secretly a cyborg.

Meanwhile a plague has rapidly been taking lives throughout the Earth even prince Kai's own father has been infected, which means that scientist have rapidly been looking for a cure by testing it on cyborgs. And the Lunar's queen, human beings who went to the moon hundreds of years ago and had gained the power to manipulate bioelectricity, has been threatening to start war on Earth if Kai doesn't meet her demands. The only thing that can possibly keep the queen from starting war on Earth is if the possibly alive Princess Selene is found. What tried to kill her? The queen and she'll do anything to make sure she's not found, even wage war faster.

Soon Cinder finds herself caught up in these events and finds herself worrying about more things then a wicked stepmother and stepsister.

I highly recommend you read this enticing story, I'm glad I finally did!

Cyborg Cinderella set in a futuristic Asian society dealing with a ravaging plague and freaky moon people with their sociopathic queen. Cinder is mostly cyborg, and in her world, that's not a cool, awesome thing. Cyborgs are heavily discriminated against and considered second class citizens. Or maybe they're even lower than that. Cinder actually belongs to her evil stepmother, and since she's a cyborg, she's in danger of being pulled to be a guinea pig for the cure to the plague. Note: the cure has not been found yet, which means a lot of dead/dying cyborgs. Cinder's skill with machines grants her the title of being one of the best mechanics in the city, which means that when the crown prince's favorite robot malfunctions, he turns to her for help.

With the mystery of a missing moon princess thrown into the mix, Cinder is absolutely one of the most interesting and captivating retellings of the Cinderella story that I have ever gotten my hands on. It's got action, romance (put not really insta-love), clever dialogue and great characters. The plot is solid and deviates from the regular Cinderella story enough to make it extra interesting. Seriously, when I finished it, I was rabid about getting my hands on its sequel, Scarlet.

Forgive me, fellow book lovers, for I have judged a book before reading it. I took one look at the summary for Cinder and said something to the effect of “Cool. . . but not my thing.” Then this book started showing up everywhere in people’s favorite books of 2012 list, and my curiosity couldn’t be contained, so I grabbed it from a local bookstore when I saw it had been marked down to a mere $5, and I found that Cinder is indeed my kind of thing.

There’s so much to like in this book. We have Cinder, the cyborg Cinderella who is a mechanic, has a good relationship with one of her stepsisters, and lives in New Beijing where there’s all sorts of intergalactic political tension and a deadly plague, and that’s only the beginning. Cinder is such a great character, fresh and unique, and Kai, the Prince in our tale, is the same way. In fact, I really like the character of Kai. In many Cinderella retellings, the Prince is little more than a plot device, but in Cinder he’s a real, living character who has decisions to make and stress on his shoulders and a million things on his mind. Every interaction between Cinder and Kai seems genuine and believable.

I give props to Meyer for making a retelling of Cinderella fresh, because while in some ways it is a classical retelling, in others it’s extremely different. As I read, I thought I had a vague idea of where the plot was going, and I did, but instead of making me lose interest that little bit of plot I could follow just left me wanting to know exactly how everything happened. Even though the book is around 380 pages, I raced through it and read it all in one sitting. I couldn’t leave Cinder and her world when I didn’t know the ending of the book. The “twist” at the end of this book was pretty obvious early on, in my opinion, but it didn’t dilute the power of the book as much as I thought it would.

This world is just so original, I’m left wanting more. I can’t wait to the sequel, Scarlet, releases in February. You can find Cinder on Amazon.

Final Impression: I loved this book. It’s so unique, filled with characters that I think will soon become favorites, and left me wanting to know more of the world. I highly recommend it. 5/5 stars.

OMG WOW! I have seen a lot of concepts for the Cinderella story. Although most were really good, some were extremely far fetched. I was on the fence about this book when I first read the synopsis, but Marissa definitely got my attention! This book was amazing. I loved how everything played out and the amount of thought and effort she put behind this book. I was extremely happy I picked this one up and gave it a chance. It was a really great book.

Meyer has turned fairy tale into a whole new meaning. We meet a cyborg named Cinder who faces the many hardships we saw in the Cinderella we grew up on. There is a Prince whom everyone fawns over, an evil stepmother, two stepsisters, and hard manual labor. Yet, Marissa made this story amazingly different.

Cinder has no idea how or why she became a cyborg. All she knows is the injustice she has to face everyday because of what she is. I really liked her character. She seemed so down to earth and just like any normal teenager. She has hopes and dreams and a secret crush on the Prince. Speaking of which, Prince Kai was adorable!

Kai has a lot on his plate. He has the loss of his parents and the imminent threat of war against his kingdom and the rest of the world to deal with, not to mention he has to rule as well. I was devastated reading his hardships. I felt that Kai was never going to get a break from the cruelty of the world. He has to also deal with the suffering how thousands as the “blue fever” plague, better known as Letumosis, sweeps through his kingdom. Will he ever find a cure for a disease that has been around for years now?

My favorite character was Iko. She is an android and Cinder’s best friend. Her honesty and perkiness was to die for. She was just too cute! I kind of imagined her as Wall-E, just a cleaner, whiter version. She was the comical side of this book for me. Not to mention she was also infatuated with the Prince lol.

Cinder and Kai have to each deal with the Lunars in a different but similar way. Queen Levana has become too much to handle, and secrets are unraveling faster than anyone can handle. Although I kind of guessed the bigger secret, it was still a pleasant surprise when push came to shove. I was pissed by Kai reaction to Cinder’s revealed secrets. This added him to my cold shoulder list. I cannot explain further since I do not want to ruin this discovery for you.

The most heart wrenching part of the story for me was when Cinder lost two people quite close to her. I was in shock after it happened. I guess when you think of Cinderella you think happily ever after, and that is definitely not what you get with this story. This is by no means a bad thing. I was quite relieved that it took a different turn. Not everything can turn out picture perfect. There is no happily ever after in real life, and what made this story all the more better; the realistic scenarios in the story. I am really eager to read the next story in this series. I hope Scarlet is just as good as this one!

Why I Loved It: Out of books from 2012, this is one of the most unexpected love-at-first-read experiences I've had. The whole cyborg thing had me off a little, if only because it's not something I have gotten into with a book, even with my love of Star Trek. However my sister read my copy and loved it. That along with raving reviews from people I trust on Goodreads and the blogging community lead me to pick up the book, open it, and give it a chance. And afterwards, I wanted to hit myself in the head with it for waiting for so stinkin' long to read it. It was incredible. INCREDIBLE! Now all I want is more, more, MORE! *Ok I will cool it on the all-caps now*

I will keep this short and sweet for you. This is a futuristic spin on the Cinderella tale. The whole cyborg thing tends to turn people off when I first bring it up, but seriously the cyborg part just adds to the story that is already incredible. It's not weird or strange or a bit distracting from the rest of the setting. It just works. So if cyborg makes you go "ehhh", trust me. Get over it and read the book.

This is one of the most creative spins on Cinderella that I have ever read. In fact, the whole story line is filled with this incredible creative energy. There is so much mystery in Cinder's past, even though I kinda figured out where we were going a bit early, that the story seems to take on a life of it's own, enveloping you, and carrying you along for the ride. Ms. Meyer's character development is phenomenal, and I especially loved what she did with the moon. And Cinder is such a lovable character: honest, loyal, and funny. I laughed a lot during the book.

The summary sounds completely sci-fi. It's really a mix of sci-fi, hint of historical, lots of dystopian, and a fantasy that drives the book.

For those who have read Cinder, remember tomorrow Scarlett comes out, the second in the Lunar Chronicles. I'm so PSYCHED! I shall provide the trailer below.

I had some serious doubts going into this book. Usually when a book is extremely hyped I find myself not liking it as much as everybody else. I am honestly glad to say that this was not the case with Cinder. Everything from the character development and the setting to the plot totally blew me away. I read this book in about 3 days and hated every time I had to put this one down.

When I first heard what this book was about I was a little skeptical, a retelling of Cinderella where she's a cyborg? It turns out that the author has a talent for taking classic fairy tales and reinventing them.

I loved Cinder. She was a fantastic character. She was well developed and had some sense and wasn't afraid to kick butt or stand up for what she believed in. When put with her Android friend Iko I found myself laughing at times and others just had me in tears. Then we have Prince Kai, who becomes the love interest even though it's denied for a while Cinder just can't resist his charms. I absolutely despised Cinder's stepmother Adri and her stepsister Pearl. They were the horrible characters much like the ones in the original tale, the only difference was that the other stepsister, Peony, was kind to Cinder and was her friend.

The setting of this book was fantastic. It's the world we all know but in the future. This takes place in Asia and all of the separate Asian countries have united to create the Eastern Commonwealth. I love how the author took time to describe things from the hovers that are used for transportation all the way to how the buildings are crammed together to house a large population.

This book completely blew me away. If you haven't read it yet I suggest you pick it up you will not regret it. I will be not-so-patiently waiting for the next installment in this series!

This is a retelling of the story Cinderella. Except in this book, Cinder is a cyborg and an alien.

The plot was INCREDIBLY predictable. I suppose that's kind of the point, because we know about Cinderella, so we can draw parallels between the original and this new version. I get that, but the predictableness didn't really work for me. I'm sorry, I like books where the plot has a few twists and you have to keep changing your guess. Here, from the first like five pages, I already guessed exactly what was going to happen.

I'm not saying that the original Cinderella was melded perfectly into this new version, with lots of new interesting things added in everywhere, and changed, and now we get to know more about the character of Cinderella, but the plot was so predictable. Anyway. Moving on.

Cinder lives in New Beijing, with her evil stepmother and stepsisters (well, actually only one step sister is evil) who treat her like a servant. She is a mechanic, and a cyborg, and apparently an alien as well. (Btw, cyborg doesn't mean she is totally a robot. She is just part robot, the body parts that got damaged irreparably in an accident having been replaced.) There is NO fairy godmother in this one. And of course, there's the ball. And the prince. The prince is the emperor-in-waiting, and unlike in Cinderella, where he falls in love with her on first sight, this is a more gradual ease-into-the-relationship kind of thing. And there's also this whole issue about Lunars, people who live on the moon. See, their queen wants to marry the prince, but if she marries the prince, using her special powers (Lunars have special powers), she will enslave the whole country. If she doesn't marry the prince, she will wage war. The prince is really searching for a way out, and during that research, learns of the Queen's niece, who is apparently dead, but the prince thinks differently. And then of course he meets Cinder and they fall in love, and he doesn't know she's a cyborg, which makes everything a whole lots more difficult.

It was great that the setting was finally somewhere OTHER than North America. Seriously. Give me one great dystopian that is not set in North America. This was set in New Beijing (after the old one got destroyed in the Fourth World War). I was a bit confused by the language. I mean, were they speaking Chinese or was English now a universal language?

As I said before, the plot was well thought out in accordance with the original story, and even though it was predictable, there were lots of other things that kept me on the edge of my seat.

The romance wasn't heavy, which was good. I hate obsessive, heavy romances.

My favourite character was probably Iko, Cinder's metal sidekick. I LOVED her! Cinder was also great, with just enough rebellious streak. I also loved Kai, who was not only a prince, but genuinely nice and incredibly hot (well, in my imagination, at least.)

I definitely recommend this book. Unless, of course, you hate Cinderella. Or hate cyborgs. Or hot Asian princes who are not cold bastards. Or you have an incredible aversion to predictable plots.

When i first heard the title I was soooo excited to read this. Then as I read the blurb, I was like.... Uhhh Cyborgs? Lunar people? Androids? Yeahhhh not happening. When everyone else was requesting it on Netgalley, I was trying to stay far away from it. But then I noticed that everyone was giving it 5 star reviews... And as you all should know I take all my blogger friends recommendations seriously.... So I went ahead and added it to my TBR pile. And I let it sit there and sit there. Until I got word that the sequel was coming out sometime next year. Yes I still had time, but because I've been on a fairy tale retelling kick lately, I decided to give it a go. So, I did...... And I really did fall in LOVE.
This book was nothing like I thought it would be. From the very beginning I was pulled into Cinder's world. And let me tell you, Meyer's world building is fan-effing-tastic. I could see the entire book played out in my head as I read, from the hovercrafts, to the palace, to the andriods. I loved everything about it. With her words she is able to take you to a place way off in the future way off in another country.
In Cinder's world, she lives with her "evil stepmother and stepsister" who treat her as the servant. Even through all this, she still was able to remain herself. Her wit and sarcasm was what I loved about her. As the story goes on, Cinder is the Commonwealth's top mechanic. She has the pleasure of meeting Prince Kai one day when he asks her to take a look at his android. And then the story takes off from there.
The only thing that I disliked about the story was the fact that I was expecting more Cinderella elements... I can't say what was there or what was missing for fear of giving away spoilers, but just know they were there, but not what I was expecting. I guess I was looking more for that precious fairy tale (because Cinderella was one of my favorites. Second only to Beauty and the Beast...) and not thinking it would more than likely ruin her retelling. But overall, I did enjoy the parts that were there.
Lastly, what the crap was up with that ending?! I mean JESUS Meyer are you really trying to make your readers suffer over this cliffhanger?! Now that the sequel is coming out I know a little of what may happen from reading its blurb, but I NEEEEEEEEEED the next book. And the fact that there are ARCs out right now circulating the US.... Ughhhh I need someone to be my very best friend ever in life and let me borrow it. I promise I will read it and return it in mint condition :)