Wired

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Cinder is a cyborg who belongs to her selfish stepmother. Her two stepsisters are not evil, but they are more favored. And instead of singing mice or a fairy godmother, she has a house robot who encourages her to solve her own problems.

Cinder is living in troubled times. A plague is sweeping the country. The Emperor is threatened and the Crown Prince is only barely of age. She herself is subhuman because of her cyborg body parts.

When the story spins up Cinder is looking forward to the ball in the middle of a diplomatic invasion and the Crown Prince's ascension. But of course, she can't go without her foot...

Read this book for an interesting Cinderella story and an even more interesting worldbuilding about what it means to be human, in a world where so many of us are becoming a little bit cyborg.

At Wiscon, someone told me that this book started life as a Sailor Moon fanfic. I don't know if that's true, but it makes SO MUCH SENSE if so. You don't need to know anything about Sailor Moon to read the story, though.

Read if: You're looking for a new spin on the Cinderella story. You'd enjoy light philosophical noodling about the humanity of androids.

Skip if: You want a resolved story. This one is going places, and there is not a tidy finish to this book.



View all my reviews

Cinder: Book One in the Lunar Chronicles