Review: Cinder
My rating: [rating=4]
Retellings of tales usually attract my attention, even though I haven’t read that many of them. Add to this the idea of a *cyborg* Cinderella, and of course I had to give it a shot.
The first thing to say is I had a hard time putting it down. On the one hand, because it is a retelling and makes uses of fairy tales codes, the story follows patterns that make it predictable (it is easy, for instance, to tell who Cinder really is, and I think the author clealry did that on purpose). On the other hand, “Cinder” falls, for me, into this category of books whose events you can predict, yet at the same time are nevertheless thrilled to see happen. Moreover, the tale itself wasn’t all there was to it, since it was intertwined with other plots (the plague, the threat of a war); in fact, I’m not sure that the Cinderella part was that essential to the story as a whole… but all in all, I still enjoyed the cross-references, and the overall plot also removed the problem of “already knowing where it’s going”.
The main character is a skilled cyborg mechanic, with still enough of her human body to long for a place in a society that rejects the likes of her, and not human enough anymore for that same society to fully accept her as more than a mere ward. Not considering the fact that “skilled cyborg mechanic” already sold me from the start, Cinder is also an interesting person to follow. She has spunk, a will of her own, she’s intelligent and resourceful, she fights to lead her own life, and she doesn’t hesitate to act, rather than just runaway—she’s very far from the passive Cinderella from the tale. At times, she was maybe a little too focused on herself, but it didn’t detract from her that much.
Prince Kai, too, is a fairly nice modern retelling of his original counterpart: more than just a handsome prince, he actively thinks about the future of his country, weighs the choices he has to make, and is ready to personal sacrifice if this can ensure the well-being of his people. The relationship that builds between him and Cinder throughout the story is also believable, not instant love, not instant recognition, but feelings and interests that develop through their encounters.
Finally, I was fascinated by the world developed by the author. The tense relations between the Earth and Luna, the devastating plague, a setting not so often used in YA literature (Asia, (New) Beijing), the suspected plans laid out by the Lunars… There was more to “Cinder” than what I suspected at first, and that world seems to stand its own (I hope the next installments will confirm this, since they’ll take place in other settings on Earth and Luna). If one thing, though, I would really have appreciated getting more of a ‘feeling’ for the atmosphere of New Beijing. I couldn’t really picture it, apart from the use of a few honorifics, characters’ names, or the market place. It was too bad, because this setting was part of what thrilled me when I picked the book, and I regretted not seeing, not feeling more of it.