Cinder by Marissa Meyer

This book is: a futuristic, dystopian reimagining of the Cinderella story.
Other elements: cyborgs, people who live on the moon, global pandemics, hot Princes, strong and admirable women.
Read it: if you love a good fractured fairy tale.
Overall rating: 8.75/10

This book has so many elements that I normally dislike. There are spaceships and moon people and robots – even Cinderella herself is part-robot. If I had read even one summary, I would probably never have given it a chance. But I did no research, just impulse bought it during a Kindle sale, and I’m so glad I did.

The story that begins in Cinder is woven around the bones of the Cinderella story but it goes above and beyond (and under and around) to such a degree that I found myself really wondering what was going to happen. The familiar Cinderella tropes appear – there is a ball, there is a dress from an unexpected source, there is a prince – but the situations are so different that it feels entirely fresh.

She wouldn’t fit in a a formal ball anyway. Even if she did find dress gloves and slippers that could hide her metal monstrosities, her mousy hair would never hold a curl, and she didn’t know the first thing about makeup. She would just end up sitting off the dance floor and making fun of the girls who swooned to get Prince Kai’s attention, pretending she wasn’t jealous. Pretending it didn’t bother her.

Although she was curious about the food. – Page 30

Cinder herself, a “gifted mechanic” and cyborg, is a strong, independent, and resourceful sixteen-year-old with a mysterious past. The accident that nearly killed her when she was a child – the reason she has a mechanical hand and leg – left her with no memories from before age 11. As the story progresses and events converge, Cinder starts to learn that she might not be exactly who she always thought she was.

There’s also a planet-wide plague, a looming inter-galactic military conflict, and a complex and brilliantly crafted world with political and social issues of is own. As a cyborg, Cinder has fewer rights than the human members of her adopted family; something that her stepmother takes advantage of. And of course, there’s a ball.

I actually am going to make this a book review and a half…I read the next book in the series, Scarlet, right after finishing Cinder. Scarlet continues the storyline begun by Cinder but weaves in another storyline – that of tough, Red-Riding-Hood inspired Scarlet and her new friend, who she calls Wolf. Scarlet  is just as good as Cinder but for all the same reasons, which is why I’m sticking it onto the end of this review instead of giving it its own. There’s also the fact that I only paused for about 10 minutes between the two books, so I might be fuzzy about where one ended and the other began.

This is the beginning of an excellent series, and I can’t wait to see what Marissa Meyer does next with it. Two more books are expected; the first due in 2014.

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

This book is: a raucous yarn.
Other elements: elephants, communism, hijinks, bibles, murder, explosives, centenarians, crime, politics, atom bombs.
Read it: if your brain wants a treat.
Overall rating: 8.75/10

He was on the run from his own birthday party, another unusual thing for a 100-year-old, not least of which because even being 100 is pretty rare. (Page 8)

I was having a rough week when I happened to download this book onto my Kindle and give it a go, and it was exactly what the doctor ordered. I took it up to my roof deck with a blanket and a big glass of wine, and it was the ideal kickoff to my spring.

First, credit where credit is due: it was Publisher’s Weekly who first referred to this book as a “raucous yarn” and I haven’t been able to think anything else about it since. Thank you, PW, for calling this book exactly what it is. I hereby borrow your phraseology.

What makes The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared (I’m not going to repeat the title every time) such a success is its tone. The premise and plot of the novel are both extraordinarily complex and completely absurd, and the only way to pull them off would have been to write the book in exactly the right way. Luckily for us, Jonas Jonasson did write it in exactly the right way. Major props also to Rod Bradbury, who translated the novel from Swedish into English.

Chief Inspector Aronsson ended the evening with a gin and tonic, and while he drank, he sat there feeling sorry for himself and fantasized about pulling out his service pistol and shooting the pianist in the bar. (Page 202)

My one criticism is that I think this book would have benefited from being the tiniest bit shorter. Cutting one or two of the less brilliant scenes would have allowed to let the rest of the novel shine more brightly. I found myself tiring of the characters for about 20 pages 2/3 of the way through – and then something amazing happened, and I was in love with everything again. But I would have preferred to avoid the loss of momentum, if possible. I read very quickly, however, and that can make it easier to overdoes on a distinctive voice.

As a child, Allan had been taught to be suspicious of people who didn’t have a drink when the opportunity arose. He was no more than six years old when his father laid a hand on his little shoulder and said:

–You should beware of priests, my son. And people who don’t drink vodka. Worst of all are priests who don’t drink vodka. (Page 135)

Despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and if you like dark humor, absurd situations, and improbable coincidences, you will too. I actually think it feels somewhat like a Mel Brooks movie, except that, rather than feeling like one long joke, the book takes itself seriously and all of the events that transpire just happen to be ridiculous.

The Assassin’s Curse (The Assassin’s Curse, #1) by Cassandra Rose Clarke

This book is: the opening of a intriguing YA fantasy series.
Other elements: pirates, magicians, pirate gender roles, supernatural islands, aspiring lady pirates.
Read it: if the draw of a burgeoning 17-year-old lady pirate sounds awesome enough to get you through a slow-starting story.
Overall rating: 7/10

I chose this book for two reasons: first, because of the beautiful cover (I know, that’s a faux pas), and secondly because the protagonist is a lady pirate and that’s awesome. That, and it was one of my prize options when I won Glipho’s Strange Chemistry book review contest! Thanks, Glipho and Strange Chemistry!

This book is going to be hard to review because of how much it feels like just the first part of a story. That’s not a bad thing, because it really is the first part of a story, and there are sequels to come.

The story opens with the introduction of pirate captain’s daughter Alanna of the Tanarou’s introduction to her future husband. She knows she’s being traded away as collateral for future inter-clan relations, and she doesn’t like it. At 17, she already has dreams of captaining her own ship, but she knows that the only realistic dream for a girl in her situation is marriage. At the last minute, Alanna sees a chance for escape and takes it. However, her bid for freedom seals a price on her head and sparks a war between families. When her attempt to defend herself against an assassin sparks an unlikely magic curse and binds the two former enemies together, Alanna and her new companion find themselves facing a set of impossible tasks that are their only chance to break the curse.

I know that sounds like a whole plot summary, but I promise that’s less information than you could read on the back of the book.

I absolutely love the idea of a sassy, rebellious lady pirate, but Alanna of the Tanarou doesn’t really come into her own within the confines of this book. She’s 17 and she’s a young 17. She says herself that the longest she’s ever been away from her parents is three weeks, and that was only one time. She has a lot of growing up to do. This really isn’t a problem, since this is the beginning of a series, but it would have been more satisfying if it felt like the main character grew at least a little during the first installment of her series. By the end she still feels as naive and childish as she did at the beginning.

Part of that might be the way that the character is written. She speaks slightly in dialect, but it’s used inconsistently and the overall effect is jarring. Grammatical inaccuracies appear every few sentences, but the same character also is known to speak beautifully, using sophisticated syntax. The dialect feels very forced and it makes it hard to get a feeling for the character. Here are some examples:

The tent’s shadow seemed to be shrinking, burning up in the sun. Sand blew across my feet, stuck to my legs.  – Page 103

“What! This ain’t us stopping for the night?” – Page 103

I hadn’t even realized the hope for what it was until it got dragged away from me and I felt its absence in my heart. I couldn’t let go of that old vision of my future life and the thought of what it was going to be like now. – Page 155

…my voice turning into light. Ain’t no way that was me. – Page 37

Those were all narration or dialogue from the same character. It made it really hard for me to get a handle on her personality, and harder still to get absorbed into the story. But even so, I became used to the dialect about halfway through and stopped feeling jolted out of the novel every time I encountered a weird speech pattern.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and if I happen across the sequel, I’ll give it a chance. I’d be interested to see what’s next for this aspiring lady pirate captain and her assassin.