Cinder
I’ve heard quite a lot about Cinder, people praising the book, saying that it’s amazing and so good. It was inevitable of course, I had to see what all the fuss was about so I searched for it online and read the plot. And then I decided that no, I was definitely not going to read that book. Because it was about a cyborg. I thought it was weird and didn’t want to read it for just that reason. Then I read it anyway. And now I feel really shameful for ever judging a book for what it’s about before reading it, when in the end, it turned out to be better than good. Brilliant. It was brilliant.
This story takes place in New Beijing, over a century past the fourth world war. Cinder is a sixteen year old girl living with her stepmother and her two stepsisters, working as a mechanic. She is also a cyborg. When she was eleven, she was severely injured in a hover crash that killed both her parents and turned her into a cyborg. She was adopted by a man living in New Beijing, who brought her with him from Europe to his home in the Eastern Commonwealth. Though when he died shortly after that, in the plague that threatens to kill all people on earth, Cinder found herself living with his wife, a woman who never wanted her. Now years have passed and Cinder is not happy, but content with the life she’s living. She accepts that her stepmother owns her, that she’s treated like a servant and that she does all the work without getting any credit for it. She even accepts not being allowed to attend the annual ball at the palace. But all that changes the day one of her sisters gets the plague and Cinder gets the blame for it. All of a sudden, her life turns upside down and before she knows it she stands at a crossroad, not sure whether to turn right or left. Practically all she ever thought she knew turns out to be lies. She has to figure out who she is in order to help her country and her planet avoid war with the Lunars.
As is quite obvious, this story is based on Cinderella, but remade in a futuristic version where, though both the ball and prince appears, the main character also is 36.28 % not human. When I first heard of it I thought it was weird, as stated earlier, though mainly for the cyborg reason. I did think a remade version of Cinderella also sounded quite strange, but after reading just a few pages I found myself sucked into the story and loving every word of it. It is a weird story and it is strange but it’s also so very good. You have to be careful remaking things, it’s easy to ruin the original, but for me, Marissa Meyer has done the opposite. I never liked Cinderella as much as I like Cinder.
All in all, this fast-paced, crazy story swept me off my feet and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I finished it. Luckily, it’s just the first part of four and I can’t wait until I get my hands on the next one.
It’s safe to say that I’ve learned my lesson now, not to not judge a book by its cover, but to not judge it for the plotline. Not to be scared off by something so silly and end up missing something so amazing. I have to thank Marissa Meyer for that. That, and for the book. Because it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read.