#eastern commonweatlh

[ekrochford]

‘She was silenced by the blare of recorded trumpets through invisible overhead speakers. She ducked at the sound, eyes widening, as the short melody faded. At the last trill of the horns, a majestic voice boomed through the ball room. ‘Please welcome to the 126th Annual Ball of the Eastern Commonwealth, a personal guest of His Imperial Majesty: Linh Cinder of New Beijing”.’

-Marissa Meyer, Cinder

All right, Marissa Meyer, you have my attention.

Sheesh.

Yes, I did need to use that gif. How could I NOT use that gif?

For those who are not familiar with the Lunar Chronicles, Cinder is the first book in a series of fairy tale retellings set in the distant future of our world. That’s in a nutshell. And in a glimpse, I was intrigued.

A little more information: Linh Cinder is a teenage cyborg in the futuristic New Beijing, a place where being a cyborg is on the same level as being a sex offender or a polygamist. She didn’t have a choice in becoming a cyborg, and she has fewer options still when her adoptive father dies of the dreaded blue fever, the plague that is ravaging Earth, and leaves Cinder in the care of her bitter adoptive mother.

Cinder is a pragmatist and the best mechanic in the district; she has a plan to slip out of her guardian’s noose. But when the handsome Prince Kai comes around seeking her help to restore his personal android, Cinder finds her path to freedom quickly clogging up with complications. Before long, those complications involve the feared and powerful Lunar Queen Levana and the despised Lunar race, beings that can use their energy fields to manipulate perceptions of sight and sound like magic.

I’ve read good YA fiction before, after all. Just because a book is aimed at teenagers doesn’t mean it is, by default, bad.

THAT BEING SAID, CINDER ISN’T QUITE OFF THE HOOK.

I’m not going to condemn the whole series based on a few shortcomings, but these really should be addressed.

My usual shortcoming with modern YA fiction is the typical shallow feeling of its world and characters. This is not a quirk of the genre; I’ve read excellent fantasy YAF with real depth--sci-fi is not a far step to the left. I’ve been a teenager before, guys. I know Meyer, also, has been a teenager. For all that adults like to laugh at teens and their silly problems (”Oh, you’re out of lip gloss? How terrible.” “A two-thousand word essay? *snickers* That’s rough”) young adults do, in fact, possess real emotions. The transition between child and adult often leaves teenagers unprepared to handle the volatile complexities of ‘grown-up feelings’ but to fail to explore the depth of thought and feeling in a teen character is a terrible waste. Reading through, Meyer failed to connect us adequately to a truly, phenomenally unique incarnation of the familiar Cinderella figure, and that’s a damn shame.

Taking it further, she created a stunning new world in a techno-retro future of East-meets-West culture, and I actually felt underwhelmed. What the hell? The opportunities to drag me into New Beijing were there, and the best Meyer could do was put up a picture window for her readers to peer through. If this wasn't such an amazing setting and an amazing recreation of these fairy tales, I wouldn’t be so harsh, but I have literally never seen anything like this before. Such a novel concept deserved better presentation.

One last thought--it was all too predictable. Yeah, I knew Cinder was obviously going to end up a princess some way or another, but the hints along the way were so heavy-handed. It was like when your co-worker wouldn’t shut up about Rock Hard in the Park for a month straight and then mysteriously called out sick that weekend. Seriously. We saw that coming.

But please, this series is far from a bust! I enjoyed it, despite my complaining.

Did I mention how jaw-dropping this entire concept is? Holy gods, it’s about future New Beijing, with a whole different race of people living on the freaking moon, and mind-control, and a plague, and looming world war, and... cyborgs! The fact that I bitched about all those other things and picked the style and depth and predictability to pieces and I still really enjoyed this book is a huge indicator of its value.

I, myself, am guilty of not letting my verbs do the heavy lifting. I have committed the high sin of being disgustingly predictable. And yes, I’ve failed to bridge the gap between my readers and my characters in the past. Meyer does these things, and I understand, because I’ve been there. I also forgive her, because the bright shiny gleam of fresh blood in the fairy tale retelling world is soooooo worth it!

Now for the count.

5/10 Voice. Yep I hacked Cinder to pieces on this one. Look, when you have an idea this spectacular, you’ve got to step up your game. The writing in Cinder was pallid and shapeless; there was some magnetism to the sci-fi genre in the use of vocabulary, but too little, too late. I’ll check out Scarlet and Cress and Winter, but Cinder is the first novel and the hook that needs to yank people into the series. Descriptions were cookie-cutter, emotions were cut-and-paste, and dialogue was acceptable at best.

7/10 Characters. Now, if the premise of future-sci-fi fairy-tales is the crowning jewel of the Lunar Chronicles, the characters are the Scepter of Office. I ADORE Prince Kai. The thought of a teenage prince being a social media star was so jarringly close to reality--so, so good.  And grouchy, down-to-earth cyborg Cinder being the city’s best mechanic? OMG. Those things being said, Meyer builds her characters with very predictable templates, and I don’t refer to the fairy tale source material, here. My two commandments of compelling characters are thus: 1) Thou shalt act according to one’s nature, and 2) Thou shalt not be boring while doing so. And there were times were Meyer’s characters were, in fact, boring, not in what they were, but what they were doing.

9/10 Story. With a little more spice, I would have given Cinder a 10/10 for this one! Meyer shines in her glossy retelling of oft-told-tales and stories that have been rewritten so many times, they’re getting creased at the spines. The story is the reason I will go back, spend money on Scarlet and the others, use my time to read through, and give Meyer another shot. I was intrigued by it all, and while her hints got excessive and her characters mechanical (lol I made a joke), Meyer still had a slew of brilliant ideas for this retelling.

All in all, I give Cinder, the first book in the Lunar Chronicles, a 7/10. I have a lot of problems with this book, but I’ll still come back for the rest--if that doesn’t sell you, I don’t know what will.

Young adult fiction is in a tricky place of being in high demand, which means sometimes lesser works make it to the limelight. The Lunar Chronicles are a marvelous concept that I don’t want to see wasted. Come on, Meyer, don’t bring me down.