From the Bookshelf of Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge…

The concept here is undeniably intriguing -- what if Cinderella were a cyborg? Meyer takes the extremely familiar (perhaps overdone) story and transplants it to futuristic Beijing. This is a world where cyborgs and androids are common, but treated as less than human (androids are basically servants, and no one seems to trust cyborgs, even though plenty of people apparently have cyborg parts). The entire globe appe

The concept here is undeniably intriguing -- what if Cinderella were a cyborg? Meyer takes the extremely familiar (perhaps overdone) story and transplants it to futuristic Beijing. This is a world where cyborgs and androids are common, but treated as less than human (androids are basically servants, and no one seems to trust cyborgs, even though plenty of people apparently have cyborg parts). The entire globe appears to have come together after the events of World War IV (over what, we aren’t told) and are united against the Lunars -- a society who lives...on the moon. Lunars are not allowed on Earth, but the Lunar queen is attempting to broker a -- somewhat suspect -- peace agreement with Earth, by marrying Emperor Kai, head of the Eastern Commonwealth (Asia, evidently). Although most Earthens hate Lunars, there’s a pretty strong motivation for someone to make peace with them, since Lunars claim to have the cure to a virus that’s been devastating Earth’s population.

Lunars also apparently have all sorts of powers of manipulation...they aren’t described particularly well, some people think of it as magic, but it’s actually not? It’s some kind of bioelectric manipulation? Which is why they don’t like to communicate over “netscreens” (like Skyping, essentially)? Or looking in mirrors? Perhaps Meyer is saving that information for future books. But there’s been “peace”, in a manner of speaking, on the moon pretty much forever, because the Lunar rulers can essentially manipulate everyone into agreeing with them and doing what they say. The rare “shell,” or powerless Lunar, is able to see through those manipulations. Luckily for the rulers, shells aren’t allowed to survive, thus maintaining the status quo on Luna. And also there’s a dead princess who’s supposed to have the true claim to the crown, but she died in a fire...

OR DID SHE?!

Into all of this we have Cinder, acting out the Cinderella story pretty much to a T. She’s a cyborg with some pretty advanced programming -- a blinking light in her vision warns her when someone is lying, for instance -- she also has a metal hand and foot. Within the first 10 pages, she meets Prince Kai (his father’s still alive at this point, so he isn’t yet the emperor), who is inexplicably smitten with her. He contracts her to fix his broken android, and it’s clear that he has more invested in the device than just sentimentality. Although she’s understandably drawn to the handsome prince (literally, that’s nearly all the characterization this guy gets), Cinder is realistic enough about her own situation to know that there’s no chance of actually being with him. Thus, she rebuffs nearly all of his advances. For reasons that are never sufficiently explained, he keeps at it, continually inviting her to the coronation ball as his personal guest.

Unfortunately, Cinder’s a little preoccupied with the fact that her little (not-evil) step-sister has come down with the plague. Distraught, Cinder’s step-mother (evil, of course), volunteers her ward as part of the cyborg draft -- a program created by the palace doctors to test cures for the virus on cyborgs (better them than humans, being the thought process). Turns out (view spoiler)[ the doctor in charge is Lunar himself, and started the cyborg draft with the sole intention of finding the lost princess, whom he was certain came to Earth as a cyborg. He’s successful, obviously (hide spoiler)]. She assents, if only for the possibility of saving her sister Peony, but Cinder continues to dream of escape.

All of the major plot points of the Cinderella story are accounted for here -- step mother and siblings, a fairy godmother of sorts (the family android Iko, who I hope we haven’t seen the last of!), a carriage (an orange VW bug she restores and ends up driving to the ball), even the lost shoe (view spoiler)[ although I knew the minute we heard about her artificial foot that it would somehow get left behind at the ball and reveal her secret (hide spoiler)]. It’s somewhat predictable, but it seems like Meyer had fun writing this story, and so even though everyone already knows the outcome of Cinderella, it’s still an enjoyable read.

What lost me however, was the setting. Knowing it was set in Beijing, a few of the market scenes at the beginning reminded me of The Windup Girl, a book so saturated in Eastern culture that I felt like I needed a Thai dictionary to understand parts of it. Yet at the same time, I had no problems picturing any of the locations -- everything about the setting of that book felt rich and fully realized to me. It was clear Bacigalupi had done his research. Here, however, even though we’re supposed to be in China, minus some of the names, I never got a good mental image of any of the places described (my mental image of the castle was actually the one in Magic Kingdom...and I’m guessing that’s only because I was there recently and it’s fresh in my head). The novel literally could have taken place inside the Magic Kingdom park and surrounding Orlando, for all the attention Meyer pays to the setting. And given what I’ve read about the next two books in the series (apparently there will be 4 total?), it seems like they’ll all be in different locations. Based solely on names, I suspect Scarlet takes place somewhere in France, and based on what happens at the end of this novel, I’m guessing eventually we’ll end up in Africa. I can only hope that those settings are a little better described!

On the plus side, the novel moves quickly. There’s nothing drawn out, or strung out to ridiculous lengths to leave room for sequels...no spinning wheels here. The story is fairly dialogue-heavy, without a lot of narration (which I think is why the setting is lacking). That definitely helps the pace, and I appreciate that there aren’t pages of infodumping (looking at you, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), but it left me feeling a little whiplashed at the end. I also could have done with some more character development for Kai. Cinder seemed reasonably well-developed as a character (and given that she’ll appear in a t least one more of the remaining books, I feel like we’ll get to know her better there too), but Kai was basically a cardboard cutout of a human being. Other than being dreamy, and apparently in love with Cinder, we know very little about his actual personality. He’s understandably overwhelmed, being recently orphaned and forced to run a continent. I just wanted more of a sense of who he was, and what was so great about him, and also what he saw in Cinder.

Given that this series is titled “The Lunar Chronicles,” I assume we’ll learn more about the Lunars themselves as the books progress. Which is good, because they’re all about as flat as Kai. I get that you need to have a villain, but I don’t like it when villains are so black-and-white. Even though it’s inspired by one, this isn’t actually a fairytale, so it’s okay for there to be a moral gray area.

Overall though, I enjoyed this book more than I expected, in spite of some of its shortcomings. As a young adult novel that’s part of an intended series, it’s actually pretty great. It’s certainly not the best book I’ve read recently, or even the best YA I’ve read recently, but it’s a unique take on a well-known story, it moves quickly enough for reluctant readers to stay interested, and it doesn’t fall into the series trap where nothing happens for 250 out of 300 pages. Even though I could predict all (and I do mean ALL) of the twists before they happened, I still enjoyed the story. I felt the same way about Flat Out Love. I knew where both narratives were headed from about page 50, but I was interested enough in the stories that it didn’t bother me. I’m definitely excited to share this one with my students, and I’m ready to start reading Scarlet, which hopefully doesn’t fall into that second novel trap (where literally nothing happens, because there are still more books to sell!).