Cinder Review - Becca In A Book

Summary

In this science fiction retelling of Cinderella, Cinder is a cyborg and her prince is a soon to be emperor with an evil queen vying for his attention. Can these two find love with one another in a world where a deathly plague is killing half the population?

My Thoughts

So this book was a reread for me and honestly I didn’t really remember anything! In this science fiction retelling of Cinderella, Cinder is a badass mechanic and her prince has a much better personality. Cinderella doesn’t play with mice, but instead has found solace with an out of date robot. I really enjoyed this retelling, a lot more than I thought I was going to.

I have always found the story of Cinderella to be a little irritating. I mean it is honestly such a boring fairytale and I never really related to her. However, an intelligent mechanic with a great sense of humor makes a better Cinderella in my book. I also like the fact that she speaks better to robots than to mice. Mice make very gross pets in reality and that always weirded me out.

I felt so bad for Cinder in this book because she literally cannot catch a break! First she gets her sister sick, then her evil stepmother (OMG SHE WAS AWFUL) sells her to be a science project, and then she finds out that her whole life is basically a lie. This poor girl, I wish she could’ve taken off in that car and drove away from all this nonsense!

Prince Kai was definitely dreamy though not really my type. A little too sweet for my taste, but poor Cinder desperately needs it. They’re romance was definitely cute, but it kind of came out of nowhere. I just didn’t understand why he dug her so quickly and why he was willing to risk so much for her. I mean she’s amazing and all, it just was a little too cheesy for me. I actually could have done without it and would have rather focused more on the overall plot of the book world.

The book world was very intriguing to me because it had a lot of elements going on, but they were all very thought out and explained well. The society’s struggle to place cyborgs in the correct social class reminded me of a lot of struggle with racial issues we are still facing today. Even though it made me extremely sad, it is an important subject to incorporate so that we can keep the conversation going.

The plague that the country was experiencing in the novel also hit home with me because of all the things going on in the pandemic. The desperation, the need for a vaccine, the family struggle, the struggling government, it was all so real and raw. The conclusion of this book was a cliffhanger so I’m in desperate need to find out what happens next.