Book review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

"A retelling of Cinderella where Cinderella is a cyborg." I mostly decided to read this book just so that I could tell people that and amuse myself with their bewildered reaction. Cinder promised to be either a lot of fun or really terrible with a one sentence synopsis like that.

In truth, Cinder was a lot of fun. I'm not a fan of science fiction, and even less of a fan of YA science fiction, but I couldn't help enjoying Cinder thoroughly. In truth, Cinder is much more Star Wars/Sailor Moon-esque than say Heinlein, and in fact, about half way through the book I realized that I was imagining all the characters as Miyazaki-like anime.

Although the plot was extremely predictable (there is actually much more to it than a Cinderella-story though, there's a plague, two civilizations about to go to war, an evil queen, refugees, and some political unrest to boot), I think the best part of this book was Marissa Meyer's wit. How she manages to pull off deadpan humor in a YA cyborg retelling of Cinderella is beyond me, but she does it and she does it well. The characters and their interactions with one another and her clever manipulation of the android mechanisms so that they play into each scene and each conversation of dialogue seamlessly is impressive to say the least. Cinder is unique, fun, and amusing.

Rating: *** (3)