Book review
In a stunning turn of events I found myself out of reading material this Monday. pinku just threw me an exasperated look because "Are you blind woman, we have like a ton of books you haven't read yet, hell, there are books still in shrink-wrap in this shelf!"
She was right of course, so with a long suffering sigh I went to the shelf and picked up "Wie Monde so silbern" (Cinder) by Marissa Meyer.
The excerpt at the back is .. well... utter fail, at least in the German version.
Cinder lebt bei ihrer Stiefmutter und ihren zwei Stiefschwestern, arbeitet als Mechanikerin und versucht gegen alle Widerstände, sich nicht unterkriegen zu lassen. Als eines Tages in unauffälliger Kleidung niemand anderes als Prinz Kai an ihrem Marktstand auftaucht, wirft das unzählige Fragen auf: Warum braucht Kai ihre Hilfe? Und was hat es mit dem plötzlichen Besuch der Königin von Luna auf sich, die den Prinzen unbedingt heiraten will? Die Ereignisse überschlagen sich, bis sie während des großen Balls, auf den Cinder sich einschmuggelt, ihren Höhepunkt finden. Und diesmal wird Cinder mehr verlieren als nur ihren Schuh …
Ugh. Marketing department, you fail. I would have never bought this in the store because reading this I expected something like this:
What I got though was this:
Oh and the whole thing is set in China (New-Peking).
Shut up my photoshop skills are flawless.
Yes. Cinderella or rather Cinder is a cyborg. With an artificial arm and leg. The only way to hit all my buttons harder would have been with a sledge hammer. The story set in the future after World War Four, there are aliens on the moon, everyone has got ID chips in their wrists, there are spacecrafts, androids, net screens, Univs, hover taxis, servant droids... it's a very rich, dark and rather gritty world the story takes place in and I read the whole book in like a day because I couldn't put it down at all.
The story doesn't follow the fairy tale at all, although most of the core elements are there: Cinder has a mean step-mother, Adri, but she is not the kind of because-Disney-drew-me-like-it-evil but rather a very miserable, overwhelmed mother who can't take are of her children and resents her husband for dying and leaving her alone without the means to fend for herself. She is not sympathetic but I felt it hard to really hate her while reading the book. We also have the ball and even the pumpkin carriage (which was my favourite, really, that was such an utterly cute scene) and no singing mice, thank God and it's not only the story of Cinder but of the prince, called Kaito, as well, who is charming, nice and has the worst job in the world, what with being Emperor and needing to marry queens who are like two decades older than him and aww.
The descriptions of the tech and gimmicks of New Peking are compelling and interesting but never so clinical and sterile as to erase the magic of the fairy-tale itself. I have found the book being described as a dystopian novel but that's not entirely true - the Earth government seems rather just and although there are some skeevy things goings on it's not on an 1984-level of surveillance, so my guess is that "dystopia" just gets slapped on "Cinder" just because that's what sold "The Hunger Games" so well.
Who cares anyway, I am here for the cyborg-girl who repairs androids and hovers and cars and hates it when people lie to her and is just so utterly cute and protective of her friends and just a wonderfully cute character. Oh my God, I love her. I really do.
This being a YA novel there is of course some focus on the love story between Cinder and Kaito but it is cute rather than horrendously unnerving and the ending is surprisingly sad and dramatic with a ton of trust issues for added trauma. I was surprised by how good it was actually!
“Cinder” is the first in a quadrilogy so the overarching plot is hinted at and expanded on in the second book - “Scarlet”, a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.
Set in France.
With the Wolf as the second protagonist.
As a tortured, orphaned woobie street fighter.
Fuck I need that.
She was right of course, so with a long suffering sigh I went to the shelf and picked up "Wie Monde so silbern" (Cinder) by Marissa Meyer.
The excerpt at the back is .. well... utter fail, at least in the German version.
Cinder lebt bei ihrer Stiefmutter und ihren zwei Stiefschwestern, arbeitet als Mechanikerin und versucht gegen alle Widerstände, sich nicht unterkriegen zu lassen. Als eines Tages in unauffälliger Kleidung niemand anderes als Prinz Kai an ihrem Marktstand auftaucht, wirft das unzählige Fragen auf: Warum braucht Kai ihre Hilfe? Und was hat es mit dem plötzlichen Besuch der Königin von Luna auf sich, die den Prinzen unbedingt heiraten will? Die Ereignisse überschlagen sich, bis sie während des großen Balls, auf den Cinder sich einschmuggelt, ihren Höhepunkt finden. Und diesmal wird Cinder mehr verlieren als nur ihren Schuh …
Ugh. Marketing department, you fail. I would have never bought this in the store because reading this I expected something like this:
What I got though was this:
Oh and the whole thing is set in China (New-Peking).
Shut up my photoshop skills are flawless.
Yes. Cinderella or rather Cinder is a cyborg. With an artificial arm and leg. The only way to hit all my buttons harder would have been with a sledge hammer. The story set in the future after World War Four, there are aliens on the moon, everyone has got ID chips in their wrists, there are spacecrafts, androids, net screens, Univs, hover taxis, servant droids... it's a very rich, dark and rather gritty world the story takes place in and I read the whole book in like a day because I couldn't put it down at all.
The story doesn't follow the fairy tale at all, although most of the core elements are there: Cinder has a mean step-mother, Adri, but she is not the kind of because-Disney-drew-me-like-it-evil but rather a very miserable, overwhelmed mother who can't take are of her children and resents her husband for dying and leaving her alone without the means to fend for herself. She is not sympathetic but I felt it hard to really hate her while reading the book. We also have the ball and even the pumpkin carriage (which was my favourite, really, that was such an utterly cute scene) and no singing mice, thank God and it's not only the story of Cinder but of the prince, called Kaito, as well, who is charming, nice and has the worst job in the world, what with being Emperor and needing to marry queens who are like two decades older than him and aww.
The descriptions of the tech and gimmicks of New Peking are compelling and interesting but never so clinical and sterile as to erase the magic of the fairy-tale itself. I have found the book being described as a dystopian novel but that's not entirely true - the Earth government seems rather just and although there are some skeevy things goings on it's not on an 1984-level of surveillance, so my guess is that "dystopia" just gets slapped on "Cinder" just because that's what sold "The Hunger Games" so well.
Who cares anyway, I am here for the cyborg-girl who repairs androids and hovers and cars and hates it when people lie to her and is just so utterly cute and protective of her friends and just a wonderfully cute character. Oh my God, I love her. I really do.
This being a YA novel there is of course some focus on the love story between Cinder and Kaito but it is cute rather than horrendously unnerving and the ending is surprisingly sad and dramatic with a ton of trust issues for added trauma. I was surprised by how good it was actually!
“Cinder” is the first in a quadrilogy so the overarching plot is hinted at and expanded on in the second book - “Scarlet”, a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.
Set in France.
With the Wolf as the second protagonist.
As a tortured, orphaned woobie street fighter.
Fuck I need that.