Review: Cinder (Lunar Chronicles)

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer is not a series I would have considered reading if it wasn't inspired by fairy tales, and even then, I had some hesitation. It takes place in a dystopian cyberpunk-like world filled with robots, aliens, and disease. It's hardly the setting you would expect for a story based on "Cinderella," yet the first book, Cinder, wholeheartedly embraces this odd combination. I was intrigued by the concept after reading a good short story about a robotic Cinderella, but this world was a bit too dark for my tastes. Though I have little interest in reading the rest of the series, I have to give the author credit for her creativity and passion.

Cinder is a cyborg working as a mechanic in the dystopian city of New Beijing. She has several chance encounters with Prince Kai, who is in a marriage alliance with the wicked Queen Levana, an alien from the Lunar Kingdom with mind control powers. He hopes to get out of the alliance by finding the lost princess of the Lunar Kingdom, Selene, and forging an alliance with her instead. You can probably tell where this is going. However, Cinder is hardly just a futuristic love story. I was surprised by how little focus was placed on the romance. Most of the book is devoted to the disease plaguing their land and how it affects everything from Cinder's relationship with her stepfamily to Kai's relentless devotion to protecting his kingdom.

The story begins with Cinder's younger stepsister catching Letumosis, the deadly virus that had spread throughout the kingdom by Lunar immigrants. Cinder's stepmother responds to this by volunteering Cinder against her will as a guinea pig for scientists to find a cure. Cinder is horrified and does everything in her power to try to escape since being a test subject means certain death. However, this unexpected opportunity allows her to discover more about herself and the true nature of her birth family than she ever thought possible. The lab visits also bring her closer to Prince Kai, who keeps a close watch on the studies in the hopes that he can find a cure for his father and the rest of his people.

"Cinderella" already had a wicked villainess with the stepmother character, but Cinder introduces a second villain who is even more evil with Queen Levana, the power-hungry ice queen with a strong grudge against Cinder. It seems like almost everyone in this book is against Cinder, which justifies her guarded personality. However, Levana is a threat not only to her, but to the entire kingdom of New Beijing. She can use her mind control abilities to make an entire crowd of people worship her with just a glance. The monumental threat she poses to the world at large is likely to carry the the rest of the books in The Lunar Chronicles.

If you're looking for whirlwind romance and happy endings, The Lunar Chronicles is not for you. This is a dark world of death, disease, and lust for power. However, if you are a fan of cyberpunk and dystopian fiction, the fairy tale elements add a unique twist to the normal trajectory for this type of story. I admire how the author was able to incorporate the classic elements of "Cinderella" in such a unique and innovative way. It wouldn't surprise me if there's a large fanbase for this series because it does what it does extremely well. It's just not my cup of tea.