Trust & Obey

Hey everyone, Nicolette here! I’m super excited to share today’s book review Cinder by Marissa Meyer. During quarantine I went on a major book hunt, and found; The Lunar Chronicles. The first book in this series is Cinder! A futuristic modern day spin on the fairy tale we all know: Cinderella. This book was particularly fun for me to read, because my good friend, Crowned Sunbeam, read it with me. During the weeks in February we will be doing reviews for this series, so enjoy!

As we dive into the first book, we follow Cinder, a regular commoner in the Eastern Commonwealth of New Beijing, who happens to be a cyborg. Because of her cyborg parts, she isn’t treated as a full citizen and therefore we get to experience her struggle towards acceptance. Cinder was a great read, and I do feel that had Meyer not written it, it would have been a major loss to the series, and of course, the readers would be wondering about Cinder’s background. However, Cinder took me forever to get through because of the world building –dare I say it– the first half of this book was exhausting. But that is merely my personal opinion. You may read Cinder and say it was your favorite book in the series. It really just depends on the person. (Crowned Sunbeam loved Cinder) But don’t let the first half of this novel scare you off because it’s worth reading to get to the other books in the series.

One of the many things I loved about this book, was that there was a plague. I know y’all think I’m crazy for wanting to read books about virus outbreaks while we were experiencing one going on. But without the plague I feel like it wouldn’t have been as interesting considering that because of the plague Levena (the lunar queen) has an excuse to form an alliance with earth.

Now, I know I said the first half of Cinder was exhausting, but the second bit was quite exhilarating! Once I got past the rough patches of world building, I was able to fall in love with the characters! There was however, some pretty cringy talks between Kai and Cinder. They were far from inappropriate, but they made me feel very awkward. Which I think was the point.

Nevertheless, despite the world-building, and awkward bits and pieces, I loved Cinder! It was a fantastic read, and an excellent start to The Lunar Chronicles series. I would, without a doubt, recommend it to anyone who has yet to read it!

Did you enjoy this review? Let me know in the comments!