Cinder by
Marissa Meyer, the first book in the Lunar Chronicles, is a retelling of the
old poor-girl-meets-rich-prince fancy fairy tale Cinderella. And people still
love re-tellings.
What does this
book all have like Cinderella?
- A vile step-mother
- An equally vile step-sister
- A weirdly wired girl (literally) who doesn’t fit in the societal norms
- A prince
- An evil queen
- A ball
- A glass slipper
126 years
after the last world war, World War IV, New Beijing has to now fight a
different kind of war. A city set in the Eastern Commonwealth, one of the
allied ‘Earthern’ countries, is ravaged by a deadly plague that is spreading
all over the world.
Prince Kai,
who is a subject of much drooling of young girls, has been suddenly put in a
precarious position by fate where he has to take over the reins of running his
country. Luna, a country on the moon, whose inhabitants are Lunars, is
threatening a war against Earth – their evil queen Levana’s infamy stems from
the fact that she is so power-hungry that she has killed her own family for it.
Cinder, a
cyborg, is a brilliant mechanic who owns a quaint little store in a small
locality. Her guardian, who is also her step-mother, has a long lost grudge
against her, making their relationship strained and pained and hateful and
Cinder is planning already to run away from the place. But in a city where
everyone has an installed chip inside their wrists, would it be possible for
her to escape? Or is there something else planned for her?
It’s lovely to
see the story shaping up. Readers can guess mystery right at the beginning, the
final reveal of it still had a gasp escape from them. The book is quite
imaginatively written and while a few characters aren’t well-etched just yet
(maybe they would be in the next book), the protagonist’s character is very
well defined. Cinder is sharp, intelligent, logical, strong and courageous.
It is lucidly
written; fast paced and despite a few flaws has a very appealing and exciting
plot. In the next book, people can hope to know more about Prince Kai and a few
other characters, especially, a one Dr. Erland who is the royal scientist
exploring antidote options for the plague.
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