Cinder
Lunar Cronicles Book 1
By Marissa Meyer
Cinder is about a cyborg girl who in many ways is treated just like Cinderella by her step mother Adri and one of her two step sisters. The only friends she has is her youngest steo sister Peony, who has a huge celebrity crush on Prince Kai, and the household android Iko, who has a quirky personaity thanks to a deffective personality chip. Cinders adopted father died shortly after adopting her from the letumoses plague and was left in Adri's ruthless care.
I admire Cinder for overcoming diveristy, being a cyborg in a community where most look down on them and feel they are nothing more than an abomination. Little do they know Cinder is special. She's not like anyone on earth. She is the key to defeating the cruel and evil queen of Luna, Levana, who wishes to overtake all the unions of earth one by one until she rules all. Cinder is the key because she is the Lunar Princess Selene, the one who Levana tried to kill as a toddler, and thought she succeeded, to become Queen.
Book Discussion Questions:
1)What parallels can you draw between the Cindrella fairy tale and Cinder?Is there a Fairy God Mother in CInder ad who do you think it is?
As I state above Cinder is a lot like Cinderella in the aspect that she is treated poorly. As a servant versus a family member. Just like in Cinderella, Cinder's father died when she was young leaving her in the care of her step mother. In both Cinder and Cinderella, they are banned from going to the ball, but attend anyway. Iko played the part of the mice who made Cinderella's dress by leaving Peony's discarded dress in Cinder's work space. In the epic scene where Cinderella runs out of the castle leaving behind a glass slipper, she is running from her truth, not wanting the prince to see that she isn't who she appears to be. In the story of Cinder, Cinder runs from the ballroom trying to escape not only the truth that she is a cyborg, something she tried to hide always, but escape for her life because Queen Levana wanted to see her dead. Like in Cinderella, Cinder has a "fairy godmother". Doctor Erland plays the part of Ciinder's fairy godmother. He gives Cinder the antidote to the plague her sister is dieing from and goes into the jail after Cinder is arrested and bestows a new cyborg foot and hand upon her. The hand came equiped with everything she needed to break out of jail and flee the commonwealth.
2)What does it mean to be human? Why do you think in Cinder's world cyborgs are thought to be less than human? What about Lunars? What are real-world parallels you can draw between the discrimination against cyborgs and Lunars to race, disability and class?
To be human means to have emotion. To feel. In Cinder's world, cyborgs are thought to be less than human because they have robotic parts to replace those they lost. Because of these repotic parts, like Cinders hand and leg, people in Cinder's world believe they must be more macine than human and therefore have no feelings or thoughts of their own. It's one thing to have an adroid but another to be a cyborg. They view this as an abomination because these people who were turned into cyborgs were meant to die, not to be saved by recieving metal body parts. The dicrimination between cyborgs and Lunars is a lot like real-world discrimination against race, religion sexuality because people don't like what they don't know or understand. They can't understand what it's like to be a cyborg or why anyone woud want to be one so therefore they don't like it. It all cycles back to ignorance. People don't understand dissability. I've experienced this with my own son. He has many medical problems including a feeding tube. When people see the feeding tube they freak out because they don't understand. Because of the tube he is treated differently. When he was smaller he was on oxygen and a gtube feed 24-7 and when we had to take him out people would give us dirty looks and judge the situation. They thought we were horrible parents because our kid was sick and they couldn't understand that this was how he was born and that it was no ones fault. I even had people shy away from us thinking they could catch whatever he must have.
3) Cinder has many cyborg abilities. What cyborg abilities would you like?
I think the ability to tell a lie would be a blessing and a curse but it would come in handy when the kids try to get away with something.
Cinder was exciting and fun to read. I give it 5 out of 5 stars on goodreads.com
