Review: 'Cinder' by Marissa Meyer

Overview

Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Series: Lunar Chronicles
Pages:  387
Format: Paperback 
 

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless Lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . 

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.


Review (spoilers below)


I thought that this book was extremely poor. Whilst the writing style was average, it was nothing to write home about. The characters were extremely under-developed and were stereotypes of themselves. The story, was at some points a very accurate retelling, and at other points felt nothing like the original story. The story was extremely lacking, with very little tension in the story line, because frankly I cared about no one. All problems were resolved too quickly for them to add to the plot, and as such this story felt extremely rushed. The plot twist was also completely obvious to me, and I have no interest in reading the second book, especially as I know it's about another character, which means that Cinder's story line will not be resolved.

Now for the spoilers, and my real gripes about this book. Simply put it was incredibly boring. Whenever anything interesting was introduced it was immediately disregarded. A world that should have been extremely exciting was left under developed. I really wished we could learn more about the cyborgs, and the discrimination that they faced, but we didn't. We didn't even learn much about the robots. 

Cinder was an one-dimensional character. She had no personality, and she felt exactly like every other heroine from Y/A, which really bothered me, as I had hoped she would be a strong character. She had no memorable flaws (apart from being a cyborg). She was incredibly worried about discrimination due to being a cyborg but no one seemed to care, which bothered me, as this could have had great social commentary and it just lacked it. Her relationships were all jokes. Her step-mother wasn't as scary or horrid as she could have been, and would could have been a great subversion of the original story was abandoned for the sake of having yet another story with woman hating on woman. 

Her robot, who could have been a quirky and interesting character had no development, and read as though she'd been made up in about 5 minutes, so when she was killed I really couldn't care. I didn't really care when her sister died either, or when we saw that the little boy had been taken into hospital. In regards to the boy, she made an incredibly selfish decision to take the antidote and give it to him, when his mother had died, leaving him no one to look after him.

Her relationship with the prince was non-existent. He was used mostly so we could discover information about Levana, and there is some sort of insta-love between him and Cinder than completely confuses me since they only met about twice. It felt as though she'd tried to cram at 600 page book into 400 pages and subsequently everything was rushed.

Tell me if you think I should continue with this serious, or if it gets better, as right now I have no desire to continue. 

review

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Review: 'Throne of Glass' by Sarah J. Maas

Overview

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
Series: Throne of Glass
Pages:  422
Format: Paperback 
 

Meet Celaena Sardothien. Beautiful. Deadly. Destined for Greatness. 

In the dark, filthy salt mines of Endovier, an eighteen-year-old girl is serving a life sentence. She is a trained assassin, the best of her kind, but she made a fatal mistake. She got caught.

Young Captain Westfall offers her a deal: her freedom in return for one huge sacrifice. Celaena must represent the prince in a to-the-death tournament - fighting the most gifted thieves and assassins in the land. Live or die, Celaena will be free. Win or lose, she is about to discover her true destiny. But will her assassin's heart be melted. 

Review

I was really disappointed when I was reading this book because I had such high hopes for it that weren't lived up too. Every book blogger and booktuber I've seen raves over this series and currently nothing that I've heard rings true.

I have many problems with this book, both in the characters and the story, but let's talk about the characters first.

Celaena Sardothien is an extremely, derivative, and boring character who barely reads like a person. She has no flaws (except that she's an exceptionally bad assassin) or personality, and feels more like the author wrote the kind of person she'd like herself to be than an actual person at all. The best part of her backstory, her being an assassin, is glossed over for the majority of the story, instead we have more focus on her friendship with Nehemia and her book reading habits than anything interesting about her.

Dorian, I think, is the main love interest, and he is also extremely boring. He is originally portrayed to us as a heartbreaker, who has a string of ex-lovers but we never see anything like that. He spends most of his time trying to do something with Celaena, which doesn't seem to be sex, though we never see him as someone who falls in love easily. The only thing he has in common with Celaena is that he reads a lot, and I think a lot more tension could have been built if there was more of a focus on the fact that he is the prince and she is an assassin.

The only character I found interesting was Chaol. His stoic personality make his intentions and thoughts difficult to read, and I really wish we had had more of a focus on him throughout the book, especially as the summary made me presume he was the main love interest.

The story was also lacking. The best scenes were at the training sessions and in the competitions, but they were glossed over far too much, especially as they should have been one of Celaena's main focuses, as her freedom is entirely based in her winning the competition.

Overall, my main issue with this book is that it reads like a filler book in a series, that is just their to fill the space between the previous and the next book. Except that there is no previous book. I will, however, be continuing with the serious, mostly because I have heard such good things about it that I hope that it get's better.

Let me know if you've read the series, and whether or not it got better for you.

two-star review

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Review: 'The Iron Trial' by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare

Overview

The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare
Series: Magisterium
Pages:  295
Format: Paperback 
 

Most kids would do anything to pass the Iron Trial.

Not Callum Hunt. He wants to fail.All his life, Call has been warned by his father to stay away from magic. If he succeeds at the Iron Trial and is admitted into the Magisterium, he is sure it can only mean bad things for him.So he tries his best to do his worst - and fails at failing.Now the Magisterium awaits him. It's a place that's both sensational and sinister, with dark ties to his past and a twisty path to his future.The Iron Trial is just the beginning, for the biggest test is still to come . . .

REVIEW

When I first picked up this book I was incredibly intrigued by the premise, the summary felt like the book would be something I had never read before but unfortunately the story fell flat for many reasons.

My main issue with this book was the pacing. Some things that could have used more of a focus, such as character development, friendship building etc. were not developed well enough to create a connection to the character. However, some scenes felt as though they dragged, with pages and pages going by with no plot developments occurring. The only character with any real development was Call, which meant that some of the plot points weren't as effective as they could have been, with just a little more time spent developing our opinions of specific characters. 

The plot, however, is quite strong. There are quite a few plot twists which I didn't see coming, making the overall reading experience gripping and engaging. Some of the ideas felt familiar, however. Call felt like a mix of Percy Jackson and Harry Potter, and had no real personality that separated him from other novels of this genre. The premise of the school felt like a mix between Harry Potter and the Karate Kid (if you've read the book you'll understand), and very little in the book felt like it was an original idea.

My main issue with this book was just that it was too short. There wasn't enough character development, plot development or world development, and the book could have done with being twice the length it is. I do hope the next book is more developed, but looking at the length of it I'm not quite sure it will be. 

two-star review

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