Tuesday 24 January 2012

Cinder (Lunar Chronicles #1) - Marissa Meyer; Review



Book Details:
Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Puffin (5 Jan 2012)
ISBN-10: 0141340134
ISBN-13: 978-0141340135

Summary:
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.

Links to Buy:


Rating:

Thanks firstly to Puffin books for sending me this book to review (:

What can I say about Cinder? - It was different, and that's an understatement.
Surrounded these days by YA titles that revolve around wolves, vampires, fairies and other unknown creatures of the land, stories about robots and other beings have been left on the back burner. Yet Meyer picks it up, dusts it off the shelf and brings it into our world with her amazing book Cinder.

I loved the cover design and the title alone, and the book was even better. Set in, for once not a typical London base or anywhere predictable, we start our journey off in the hectic and futuristic place that was China, and we follow our main character Cinder, who yes indeed, is half human and half cyborg (how awesome is that?!) on her journey.

It's highly reminiscent of Cinderella in how she lives and works alongside her step mother and two step sisters but we find something new and refreshing in Meyer's story telling ability as we step into a world where a deadly plague is killing off people on a daily basis and so far there's no clues on how to stop it. Following which, people are also under threat from an attack from the Lunar realm of the moon - at such a time, what's a girl to do?

Yet we see how Cinder's character rises to the challenge, with her quick wit, sarcasm and determination - very different from the Cinderella you were expecting. Yet under the hard exterior, lies a common girl, and Meyer's ability to convey that was beautiful - we aren't left hardened at the fact that she's a cyborg, but instead as readers we can see deep down that she really is a human and has fears, desires and dreams like we all do. I liked that about Meyer's character and give props to her in how she conveyed that easily. She's different from the typical YA heroines you may have encountered ;)

Add a dash of romance to the action and everything was set and ready to drool over. While Prince Kai may have been a little too watered down for some people's taste, who desire a strong man who leads the way with no nonsense, but you can find something within his soft self - such as the kindness he radiated, and how down to earth he was. You can see why Cinder fell for him the way she did, when many of us girls would probably swoon at him too ;)

Dead people, plague, threat of war, tension, action, romance - it's all there, wrapped up in a perfect little package that you'll love once you pick up and open and get sucked into the world that Meyer has cultivated. I loved Cinder, and can't wait to see what Meyer has in store for us and Cinder in the next book, the link for the review which can be found here.

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