Burgundy

Cinder had me at cyborg. And then it had to go down another path.

Cinder is currently the number one on the list of the most predictable "plot twist" of the year. Anyone could have seen it coming from miles away. The clues were there, Cinder should have figured it out by herself, put two and two together. No Sherlock needed on this one. Case closed. Still the author only 'reveals' the obvious in the last chapter. I desperately wanted to be proven wrong, be astonished by the author's cunning. What a pity.

The main character Cinder is supposed to be the best mechanic in New Beijing. Actually she has the same knowledge about mechanics as the average person confronted with a malfunctioning piece of technology: hit and curse until it works again or buy a new one. It bothered me that she went from the ostracized cyborg teenage girl to the one and only special snowflake. Also despite underlining her differences and the attempts to make the readers feel sympathy for her, Cinder got it pretty good. She mainly lacks self-acceptance. That's all. In Cinder being cyborg means that you're a lesser human that has been given another chance. So this 'futuristic' society wouldn't accept people with prostheses or missing limbs? Cinder doesn't embrace or show the possible advantages of being a cyborg when in fact her scientifically enhancements helped her in more ways then one. Beside that she suffers from the syndrome of doing the opposite what she's been told/warned.

Mid way we get this info dump about Lunars (inhabitants of the moon) but it doesn't explain everything. What I got out of it is that basically the Lunars are humans with improved psychic competences. But why and how? There're some other things that need more explanation. Cinder can't cry nor blush but she does feel emotions. How does the whole artificial intelligence work? and so on.

The ideas are there. But they should've been developed a bit more and Kai given more substance, he desperately needs it. Cinder is definitely not your kick ass cyborg. Maybe in the next book? But still it was an original retelling. I will give the next book a try, the cliffhanger did its job