About a year ago, I bought Cinder for a $1.99 and tried to read it. I didn’t get halfway through the first chapter before putting it down. The whole cyborg concept really threw me off and I just wasn’t into it.
If only I’d given it until Chapter Two—I would have been hooked. I gave Cinder a second chance last week and have since blown through Scarlet (book two) and Cress (book three). I cannot wait for the fourth book, Winter, to come out this year (can you believe this year is 2015?!).
The entire series is incredibly well-written and original. I’m not usually a science fiction fan, but this was superb. Told in multiple points-of-view, the storyline focuses on Cinder, a cyborg mechanic who discovers her mysterious past after a series of run-ins with Prince Kai, the plague, and an elderly royal doctor.
I love retold fairy tales, and this was no different. Meyer took classic fairy tales—Cinderella, Little Red
Riding Hood, and Rapunzel—and spun them into science fiction. Cinder’s story is based off of Cinderella, if her name didn’t imply that already—she’s an adopted cyborg, complete with two stepsisters, a nasty stepmom, and a dirty job. She doesn’t need mice helpers—she has Iko, a little robot with a personality flaw that makes her more human than android.
Book two is named after a new character, Scarlet, who’s story falls along the lines of Little Red Riding Hood. Her grandmother is kidnapped, which leads her to Wolf, a streetfighter with an uncanny lupine resemblance.
Book three is named after Cress, who, with her long golden hair and satellite prison, is the story of Rapunzel.
Each chapter switches between characters—Cinder, Prince Kai, Queen Levana (the evil queen), Cress, Scarlet, Wolf, Captain Thorne. This style usually annoys me and leaves me overwhelmed, but Meyer did it flawlessly, in a way that made the story mesh and flow, while enabling the reader to truly get to know each character. In fact, there wasn’t a single character that annoyed me—I loved that. All three girls are very independent and strong in their own respective ways, and though there was some instalove, it wasn’t that bad.
I highly recommend this series! 5/5 on Goodreads.
lifebetweenreads.com 