Cinder by Marissa Meyer: A pleasant surprise

Screw the Obsidian analysis I've barely started and the almost-complete Doctor Who finale write-up I still haven't posted on Tumblr (which may just never go up, at least completed). I'm in the mood to review this while it's still fresh in my mind. (Although admittedly it's been possibly over two weeks because I forgot about this post.)

I bought Cinder quite a while ago when I still had YA optimism, because it was (and still is, go check it out) just $2.99 on Kindle. But by the time I had started reading it, I was getting increasingly frustrated by the age group. The thrill of reading genre series as I had when I was younger was leaving me, as I began to feel in YA they were too similar with elements I just wasn't fond of and I gravitated more toward the underrated contemporary novels when I did read the
I was planning on not reading YA purely for hype, and deleted a few from my to-read list because the synopses had not appealed to me. I was prepared to write for a middle grade market, as I was dissatisfied with this one.

Until now.

Well, I mean, I'm still going to be critical. There are still elements and patterns I'm not fond of that are apparently in the majority of what is published in this age group, and those are also the things I will probably never write. But still, there is hope for a little something different.

Enter: Cinder by Marissa Meyer.

The ironic thing, considering the above, is that this would have been one of the first to go if I was eliminating books I had no natural interest in. Fairytale retellings? Cinderella? I was the strange girl who didn't grow up on Disney princess movies and who isn't too interested in happily-ever-afters. Well, Cinder is actually an unpredictable retelling to an extent, and is only the first stepping stone in a larger series (which is one I want to continue for once!). It probably isn't going to change your life or make you think too much, but it succeeds in the inoffensive entertainment and interesting departments, which is sometimes just as good.

From first glance, this seems like a lot of ideas thrown into a blender. Cinder is a cyborg (not an android, although those exist too) who works as a mechanic and is the ward of a wealthy family containing her step-mother Adri and step-sisters Pearl and Peony; they live in New Beijing, a futuristic Beijing after the Fourth World War in which there was a lot of destruction that caused the world to join together and form about five nations, this being the Eastern Commonwealth; there is a deadly plague running rampant and oh, there are also these Lunars who are oppressive brainwashing aliens who have an eye on a political foothold...you get the idea. But, for the most part, this felt well put-together and original instead of tossing several ideas in a blender.

First off, I'll air my few criticisms.I believe the worldbuilding comes off a little short in regards to the other aspects. Cinder takes place in a futuristic China, which is great--YA dystopias are overwhelmingly USA-exclusive--but there isn't a whole lot of Asian influence. I believe others have covered this better than I ever could (check this out), but mostly there were a few simple names, the mention of pagodas or a Buddha statue, and the fact that the ruler is called "emporer" (which made me think of how my world history teacher believed the dyanastic cycle in China would come back as it has throughout history). That's it. We get to learn how the world became more united through the war, but what happened to the culture?

Furthermore, I was initially a bit confused over how human and how robot Cinder is. At first I imagined her as a complete android like Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, so phrases like "her heart winced" were jarring. Eventually I remembered what a cyborg actually was (how silly of me), although it is a bit disappointing that she mostly behaves as a human. Also, I guessed the plot twist very early on (and some of the other twists in advance), which didn't hinder my enjoyment of the book because I did have a good time with it, but it did make the ending feel a bit anticlimactic. Still, I am looking forward to continuing this series, which I hear only gets better.

Onto the good things, then. Despite the aforementioned predictability which had to do with a different aspect, Cinder does not adhere too firmly to the fairy tale. Her robotic foot is an important symbol but it doesn't have the same plot significance (unless I missed something?). There isn't a Fairy Godmother, and other elements are cleverly changed or thinly incorporated. Most refreshingly, one of the step-sisters is nice, and the other step-sister and the step-mother have motivations to be grouchy. The romance is also not as prominent and both characters are fully established as people with their own stories, and it takes on a slow build that made me so happy exists in a YA book. And I'm not going to spoil, but there were a few twists that made it even better.

I don't think I'll get to the rest of the series until the new year, but I am looking forward to it. Cinder wasn't perfect and it wasn't significant, but it was fun, and that was the genre I needed at the time and it's still a genre that has legs.