Cinder (Lunar Chronicles, #1)

by Marissa Meyer

[layawaydragon]

I loved Cinder. I won a giveaway through Phantasmic Reads and picked Cinder as my prize. I put off reading it for so long for a couple of reasons: it took me awhile to get ahold of it, I wanted to like it so badly, and I hate reading series as they become published. Hate it. I love just sitting and reading the whole series all the way through. Especially since I read so much and my life is rather turbulent, I usually forget details when waiting for a sequel for a year. Thus, I read Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress in two sittings. I’m now dying to read Winter.

However, I’ve noticed a problem with such a reading strategy when I don’t stop to review each book along the way: it’s impossible to separate them now. They’ve molded into one reading experience for me with covers merely formalities. I love them all equally and their flaws are generalities shared.

Pros
Liked most of the characters
Great concepts re: cyborgs, lunars
Fast paced, engaging
Wonderful take on princess tales

Cons

Deplorable world building
Predictable
Plot holes
Flat, pure evil just because villains


Loved the characters
Fantastic fantastical aspects: cyborgs and faerie-like moon people
New take on princess tales
Blends science fiction, fantasy, and folktales
Fast paced, engaging,
Lackluster villain who’s evil for evil’s sake. Much like classic Disney, but at least evil stepmother is fleshed out. (Though there’s Fairest coming next year to hopefully give her depth.)
Liked Kai’s sarcasm but it’s improbable given his princely status having been trained for this since birth and becomes more lackluster as the series progresses
Plot twist was obvious for me on page 44 while reading Cinder and similarly with Scarlet and Cress but given their inspiration it’s really just a given anyways. Nevertheless, I still found it immensely enjoyable.
Revamping folktales does take most of its edge off, plot-wise but it’s engaging fast pace makes up for that.

Characters: Overview

I found Cinder compelling, liked Iko and Peony, Pearl’s just an asshole (copying her mother?) and Adri acts likewise but at least she’s understandable. Prince Kai’s sarcastic, which I love, but his actions are usually unrealistic, especially when it comes to Cinder. It’s hard to get excited over him when he feels like a fangirl’s flat/insipid/jejune/lifeless/vapid pipe dream/wet dream/delusion. Restraint would be ingrained at least, if not better public relations skills. The Emperor’s rarely seen and used as a prop. Torin, his right-hand man, is the bland, background nanny to our rebellious prince. I also like Dr. Erland who made a lot of sense as a character but maybe I’m biased since his information dumps were so useful. Queen Levana’s evil for evil’s sake as is her trusty lap dog, Sybil the thaumaturge.

Scarlet’s the caring, naïve, sacrificial type (no surprise there) while Cress’s the romantic sheltered techno-nerd (that last bit’s at least interesting). Wolf brings the damaged alpha male from paranormal romance, and Captain Thorne reminds me of Captain Mal from Firefly, which is apt given their shared world building “pan-Asian” problems.

Nonexistent character descriptions

The bar is set so low in media simply having a romantic lead be Asian is noteworthy. Breaking the model minority stereotype and actually getting the girl doubly so. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t pitfalls, which can be overlooked due to good intent.

Romantic leads are usually described with vivid detail in ways to induce drooling, even in young adult novels. However, only Prince Kai’s eye color, hair and lips are described while the rest of his face is left blank. Besides clichéd claims to attractiveness (lips all the girls drooled over), there’s nothing there which was startling given how often face shapes, chins, noses, and cheeks are mentioned when the man is white.

I was expecting Prince Kai to receive the same treatment and was looking forward to it. Instead, I’m left uncomfortable being forced to supplement it myself and frankly feel cheated.

Beyond just being a major lapse when writing characters, omitting this is problematic it itself. It serves as another way to treat minorities differently and re-enforces the idea that members of non-white races all look alike. When an author does it, it signals to readers whether they consciously pick it up or not, that this character is Other. Readers already whitewash characters when there’s explicit details about P.O.C. characters, what are the odds they’ll do that with characters barely described?


Points for having an Asian male romance lead breaking the model minority stereotype and getting the girl finally. Is it just me or do books avoid describing minority faces? I know they describe skin color differently and doing it subtly is better. However, it seems like they merely describe eye color and hair (Cinder pg. 6 specifically), where if it was a white man, they’d also drool over chins, and noses, etc. of our leading man. There’s mention of his luscious lips but they’re not described beyond clichéd claims to attractiveness.

Leaving, IMO, readers to substitute the standard Asian face (unless they whitewash him) where most Americans, at least, can’t tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese. I know it made me uncomfortable to have to imagine him generically since I was given nothing to work with. I think describing more face shape attributes would be helpful to combat this, especially since the whitewashing bias is so strong and done to thoroughly, properly described characters.

Prince Kai and Torin only Asian characters besides a background mother and her child who are barely described as “big baker” and “little boy”. The Lunar Chronicles is very light on describing characters in general. This I do not like.

Plot: Predictable but Enjoyable

Loved finding out more about Cinder’s past in Scarlet and seeing her step up in Cress. Really loving women banding together aspect since usually it’s The Smurfette at work. Cinder’s stupidity does move a lot of her novel’s plot.

Placemat World Building

I really enjoyed Cinder, but missed the great world building people kept talking about. Honestly, it read like poor New York more than anything else with its nondescript tall buildings and flea market stalls. But that’s as far as my thinking on the subject went with New Beijing. While reading reviews and articles trying to figure out if I missed something or did that horrid whitewashing of characters/places in my mind, I discovered I wasn’t alone. Actually, there are people far more knowledgeable who make a compelling case against Cinder’s shoddy generic world building.

It also gives me excellent food for thought on science fiction using exotic other as dystopian. I hadn’t actually noticed. While my mind immediately sprung into defensive mode with “But you’ve never seen/read Stephanie’s other examples!” and scrolling through my read shelf with a new critical eye, the fact is I’ve should’ve known. It’s an important topic and am rather disappointed it hasn’t reached father.

I did not catch the name difference once reading that, even I’m not ignorant enough to accept a Japanese family ruling China. Well, all of Asia apparently. That’s the other part I struggled with was picturing how countries are now organized in that world. I mean all of those different peoples and cultures suddenly becoming one massive Asian culture? Where does Russia fall with the Europeans or where most of its landmass resides—in Asia? Africa too, from Egypt to South Africa? As for Europe, they’ve got the EU started but just one government? There has to be smaller rulers for each former country. Something else must be going on here. There are so many differences that I just don’t see people becoming a melting pot when they’re still living in their own country. They are still going to preserve their culture and have a say on what happens.

It mentions being 6 countries strong, pg. 251, so my best guess is Asia, Middle East, Americas, Australia, Europe, and Africa though there’s two European representatives mentioned just several pages prior. Seriously, can we get a map please? Something to illustrate the massive overhaul Earth’s been through? Or is that too much effort to think through how that much time would affect given global warning and politics. Just read this brief information found explaining a modern map of Asia.

Where would Turkey fall, given their ties to Europe and Asia? Apparently, India is in the Eastern Commonwealth (pg. 28 mentioning Mumbai) so where did Russia fall? Do you think Taiwan would easily be yoked under China’s rule again? Or is it Japan ruling (Ruling family’s Japanese name and kimono dress) but moved their capital to Beijing? What other countries would be re-aligned in the centuries to come? I don’t expect Meyer’s to predict or even change much, but at least showing she thought that through instead of shrugging it off as needless would be nice. I suppose acknowledging the problematic nature of her simple seven countries would be hoping for too much.

Saying “it’s in the future!” is a cop-out. There are plenty of science fiction that deals with these issues in the future. The Lunar Chronicles simply ignore them while treating us to an inter-national conference call trying to avoid planetary domination by our moon’s people. That’s like saying you solved global warming enough to survive that far into the future (you’d have to otherwise, they’d all be dead) but still having junk yards, expensive gasoline and simple pollution fines. Oh.

Pg. 267 “Millions had died in World War 4; whole cultures had been devastated, dozens of cities reduced to rubble—including the original Beijing. Not to mention the countless natural resources that had been destroyed through nuclear and chemical warfare.”

Like saying “fuck until we’re all grey” to avoid issues of race by claiming “colorblindness” such tactics would render MORE diversity in phenotypes, not less. When people immigrant they hold on dearly to their heritage and culture, I don’t see China becoming diluted pan-Asian unless humans are critically endangered with the stragglers banding together. Maybe. This, however, is clearly not Cinder’s reality.

Can you at least include some words instead of just fucking up honorifics? The best books in different cultures usually include some words from the originating country, usually regarding food (“sticky buns” lol google that and see what pop up, not the airport Cinnamon bun you were thinking of), places or …uh rituals? No, like clothes (beyond the kimono for a ball, ugh) or something. Fuck. Language is such a huge part of culture, even throwing in some scraps makes a huge difference.

Scarlet has the similar half-assed setting, cobbling netscreens and rustic taverns meaning technology raced forward leaving everything non-electronic in the dust. In Cress, it’s readily apparent the “Africa’s an uncivilized place” ignorance still abounds where characters range from barbaric villains to noble sacrificial Negros. It’s far enough into the future that gasoline cars are unknown relics and moon people have evolved into their own breed yet trains are in use and city life hasn’t moved forward. Instead of a dystopian future, it feels like 20 years from now with hover cars but nothings thought through. It’s a mish-mash of the familiar and the Jetsons leaving a lazy impression.

Definitely see humans freaking out about cyborgs rendering them second-class citizens out of fear since it’s a bridge between us and androids. People already treat those with disabilities like shit, so I don’t see better prosthetics and such making a big difference unless there’s a societal movement towards equality on that front. There’s people advocating regarding this issue now but change is hard fought and slowly won.

There’s racism everywhere in The Lunar Chronicles. From fantastic racism (trope link) towards cyborgs and lunars, to a lunar racist against African kids, Exotic as Dystopian, shittily researched and written Beijing setting and world building, treating Africa as an uncivilized place and making Africans either terrible villains or noble sacrificial negros. It’s all terribly done when you actually think about it and pay attention.

IMPORTANT LINKS:
http://no-award.net/2013/08/01/the-exotic-place-as-other-and-notes-on-cinder-by-marissa-meter/
http://noveltoybox.wordpress.com/2013/02/24/review-cinder-lunar-chronicles-1-by-marissa-meyer-2012/
http://www.pocketfulofbooks.com/2012/11/ya-book-review-cinder-by-marissa-meyer.html
http://yourekilling.us/?p=1622