This is definitely a very creative re-imagining of the fairy tale Cinderella. I kind of like it. Kind of. My understanding is that Cinder is the first book in a series which is going to embark on re-imagining many fairy tales all in the same world. Much like Fables by Bill Willingham sans the graphic novel part. I don't know if I appreciate the modernization of the fairy tale knowing what is supposed to happen according to the true fairy tale. I digress.
So Cinder takes place in the future where cyborgs, androids, hovering cars, and Lunars run rampant. Cinder is the narrator, and she is a cyborg. She is an orphan, adopted by a man who dies shortly after adopting her, and she has no memory of before she was eleven.
There are many stories within this story.
The first story is about Cinder herself; her life, goals, dreams, and the weird tangled mess she eventually finds herself in.
The second story is about the world itself and it's ongoing struggle with a plague that Earth cannot find a cure for.
The third story is about the impending war between Earth and the Moon. The moon has been populated by people who have become 'Lunars'. Lunars look like humans, but due to their lives on the moon, they have adapted a unique ability to manipulate the bio-electric signatures of people in different ways.
There are many more mini-stories that take place within the story of Cinder, but I will probably not touch on them as it would most likely require me to recount the entirety of the plot of Cinder. Let's say it together, SPOILER LAND!!! I'm going to try and not take a trip to spoiler land with this book as it's very intricate.
So a little back story on the world in which Cinder takes place.
Cinder seems to live in what used to be known as China; the city she lives in is called New Beijing but the country is known as the Commonwealth. There are twelve provinces of Commonwealth. There are six countries in the world which I suspect we will learn more about as the series goes on and different stories take place in different countries or parts of the world. They still call it Earth which is nice and grounding. Technology is very present in Cinder's world; Cinder herself is a Cyborg who is less than 75% human. Androids are common place and given false personalities they can extensively develop over time. Their cars hover and no longer rely on combustion to transport. In the Commonwealth there is still a monarchy.
So Cinder is adopted into a family where her stepmother Andri despises her as she doesn't know why her deceased husband adopted a cyborg of all things. On a sidenote, cyborgs are treated as second class citizens; there is a lot of negativity towards cyborgs in general. Everyone on Earth is also hateful and horribly opposed to Lunars. Yay class-ism and racism covered! MOVING ON.
So her adopted mother and adopted sisters (Pearl and Peony) are kind of terrible to her, except Peony actually is her only 'human friend'. Cinder interacts with an android called Iko. Cinder's life seems to perk up when Prince Kai visits her booth and requests she fixes an old android for him due to it's sentimental value. They kind of have a nice conversation that's filled with lots of cheery smiles before Prince Kai has to return to his princely crap. Cinder goes home, gets yelled at by her step mom to fix things, and sets off to the scrap yard to do so while being accompanied by her sister Peony. Cinder's life gets turned upside down when her sister Peony contracts the plague while at the scrapyard with Cinder. Peony is taken away and miraculously Cinder is plague free. Did I mention Cinder is a mechanic? Man this book is complicated.
That's enough summary.
So I kind of liked how a lot of details in this book really tied together if you were paying attention to the smaller details. I kind of liked how the characters were truly different from each other. I sort of kind of liked the book.
There were some elements of the book that I just wasn't on board for (and no I will not go to spoiler land to reveal those elements). There was also a GIANT moment at the end of the book where it was kind of like a "Whoops, did I forget to mention THE MOST IMPORTANT FACT OF THE BOOK THAT WILL TIE EVERYTHING TOGETHER? HELLO?" It was pretty damn obnoxious. It was tried to be played off by the character being all 'Hurk durk, I'm forgetful LOLOLOL' but really dude? NOT COOL.
I suppose all in all I wouldn't necessarily recommend Cinder unless you're head over heels for fairy tales. Than hey, have at it. I would warn you that the tale doesn't closely follow with Cinderella yet, but it might tie back in with the future books. I would say that it was a very nice future dystopia read if you can read it purely in that sense. There's also something that's just kind of neat about being able to pop a foot off and replace it with a new foot.
I did not get all the technology jargon that was thrown around, but I did not find that hindering to my reading. There were a lot of times where I would have found a moment in the book to make much more of an impact if the emotions of Cinder had been expounded on.
The book kind of flat lined for me overall.
Happy reading!
I do not own the image that I used in this blog post. Please do not sue me. I used it purely as a reference in which it would be clear as to which novel I wrote about.
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