Okay, this is my second time reading this book. The first time, I hated it. I thought it was boring. I stumbled through it. I finished it and never wanted to return to it, and only read the first chapter of the book Scarlet. Fast forward about a year, my book club with different members wants to read this book AGAIN. I put it off until the last minute, but before reading it I pick up Heartless. Not really looking at the author, I SPEED through Heartless, loving every second of it. Then after I am finished coming off of that high, I remember this book. This SERIES. I decide, why not stumble through the first few books if the writing improves to Heartless levels. This time, knowing what the author is capable of, I read the book with entirely new eyes.
Cinder is a girl who has some robotic parts and some human parts. Due to this, she is discriminated against by people in society, and her stepmother has made her into a glorified worker bot. When the prince comes to her mechanic’s shop and tells her that he needs her to fix an old bot because it was his childhood helper, she knows that she is lying because of her sensors. Soon after, there is an outbreak of the fever at the market, and she rushes home.
Her sister Peony and Pearl are getting ready for the prince’s ball where he may just be finding a wife. When Cinder and Peony go to the junkyard to look for an old magbelt, you can see how close the two are truly, and Cinder tells her about the Prince coming to the market. Peony breaks out in the rash of the fever, and so Cinder has to send away the one person in the house that actually liked her. Blaming Cinder for Peony’s death sentence, the stepmother volunteers Cinder for plague testing. This sets Cinder on an adventure that she could have never expected, as the testers find out some interesting things about her.
The second time around, after reading Heartless, I could see more of Meyer’s true style come through. I understood her description and was able to follow the story better. Her writing has definitely improved from 2012-2016, but I can understand the book better now. I loved Cinder, being such a strong girl under the face of so much criticism. All the people in the book had a unique story, especially the prince. I would recommend this book to people, simply because this is the stepping stone to further in the series when everything is sure to be smoothed out and even more enjoyable.
Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 books.
Good book! Currently working on a series review 😜
Ill do the series review book by book…once I finish the books XD
Cool!!
I think books like this are fantastic because they delve into human discrimination, but in a whole new way. Usually when you have discrimination in books, it’s the medieval/OLD eastern style knights and dwarves and elves and witches and wizards and stuff, but I think taking a robot and making her the workaholic is a nice spun touch that you don’t commonly see.
It sorta represents people and not liking change. What if people always wore glasses? People with glasses just a little while back and sometimes even now, were called mean things and bullied and stereotyped. Nowadays, it’s a lot more common, and even a fashion (some people wear fake glasses)
Eh, just my two cents. Good review, looking forward to seeing even more!
I totally understand that. It’s partially why I did enjoy most of cinder and adore the Red Queen series. It shows discrimination/racism that no one has even thought of.
Nice. Hope other books with such underlying themes are reviewed.