Book Review: Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #1) by Marissa Meyer

Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #1)
by Marissa Meyer

Have you ever started a book with extremely high expectations because everyone you know and their mothers loved it and then ended up just underwhelmed? Well, Cinder was that book for me. Everyone I know goes crazy about the Lunar Chronicles so when I found the time for a buddy read with Pavlina, we decided to pick up this one, since it seemed like a sure favourite. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case.

The first book in the Lunar Chronicles centers around Cinder, a cyborg that lives in New Beijing under the 'protection' of her stepmother and works as a mechanic. However New Beijing and all of earth is threatened by a terrible disease and on top of that there are the Lunars, people that live on the moon and are not very fond of earth people. One day, while Cinder is working, the prince of New Beijing pays her a visit, asking for her help. On the exact same day there is a virus appearance at the marker where she works. Cinder's stepsister gets infected, her stepmother 'volunteers' Cinder as a test subject for the cure and a lot more thigns happened afterwards that will change Cinder's live.

I don't know what was it that really made me keep on reading this book, propably the fact that everyone loves this series and I wanted to love it too or maybe that people kept on telling me that the next books are better (I sure hope so). Cinder was a slow book, where nothing much happened, there was not great world building or character development, except maybe for Cinder, there was no real action and everything that happened was a bit predictable.

The one thing I enjoyed about this story was the potential it has to become something amazing. So, I will choose to see Cinder as the introductionary book in the series. Also, Cinder herself wasn't bad either, she was very dull and boring in the beginning but after a while she started speaking her mind and going after the things she wanted and fighting to do the right thing, which I always appreciate in a character. But apart from her we didn't get to know anyone else that much. Prince Kai had a lot of potential, when we first saw him I though he was a really sweet and cute character but he didn't really evolve after that, he was a bit one-dimentional and I never bought the romance between him and Cinder.

The one thing that redeemed this book was the ending, a lot of crazy sh*t went down, which were a bit predictable too, but was something exciting nonetheless. The one character I am most curious about this Queen Levana and I am glad that a book about her story is coming out too. So, all in all this wasn't as good I hoped it would be but I am going to keep on reading hoping it would get better, because it definitely can.