Cassandra Reads

This book has just enough world building that you don’t feel lost, but not so much that 95% of the book is world building. Cinder is a cyborg and that gives her a lot of problems throughout this book: she’s considered property, so she has no rights and all the money she makes as a mechanic goes to her owner.  This is one thing that isn’t really explained.  Yeah, she’s a cyborg but who thought it was a good idea to make any and all cyborgs property?  They aren’t machines!  It seems that most of them had an accident of some sort and had to have mechanical limbs since they lost theirs or that’s what I got from it.  I’m not sure if this is the same everywhere, since Cinder lives in New Beijing and doesn’t really go any farther than that in this book.

I spent most of this book assuming she was somehow going to end up with the prince.  She still might (and likely will given what we learn about her - it was meant to be a shock but I expected it), but it doesn’t happen in this book.  Each book of this series seems to focus on another girl.  I think the main focus is going to be Cinder overall, but I’m a little iffy on each book being about a different girl (I’m not sure if I’m really going to care about them or just as they relate to Cinder’s story).

This series is meant to be YA but I don’t really get that feel from Cinder.  I don’t really read that many YA books (and I say that every time I review one).  Cinder’s voice isn’t that of a teenager.  I’m not sure the book really says how old she is, but she was eleven when she was in the accident that caused her to become a cyborg.  She might be as old as 20, but I’m not completely sure where I get that idea from.