Recently, in approximately the last ten years or so the market for Young Adult fiction has exploded. However, with this explosion comes the inevitable money seeking authors, or authors who aren't necessarily writing solely for the money but might have only made a deal because the subject of their novel fit the bill, so to speak. Hundreds and hundreds of YA novels have been and are still being released every year and sometimes it's easy to get lost and miss out on the really exceptional ones.
Cinder, by Marissa Meyer, I would argue is one of those exceptional ones. I must reveal my faults and admit that I judged this one by its cover. I saw it and was disinterested by the fact that it was a fairytale retelling done with a post-apocalyptic twist. In my mind both fairytale retellings and post-apocalyptic novels were overdone. So, I avoided it.
However, my avoidance was not to be. All of my roommates read it and I still managed to avoid even reading the blurb but eventually it got to me. One of my good friends needed me to babysit her books while she went away on a study abroad. Cinder was in the pile. So, finally I gave in and read it.
I think I may have finally learnt my lesson to never judge a book by its cover or by the literary stereotypes. Cinder is indeed a retelling of the Cinderella fairytale but it doesn't unfold in the way you would expect it to. Marissa Meyer has done an excellent job in re-writing the tale while introducing heavier conflict and higher stakes than the typical fairytale love story. The protagonist, Cinder, is a cyborg and with that comes a sort of racial prejudice against her. The novel is about Cinder's persistent struggle with this prejudice while accidentally getting caught up in the much deeper-rooted politics between the Earthens and the Lunars. Meyer is a talented writer and manages to continue the story through the next two books without losing any of the novel's initial charm.
In the last blog post I wrote, I encouraged us to read something other than YA. However, this is one of the best Young Adult novels I have read in a long time and I encourage you to give it a shot.
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