Reviewing – Page 14 – Lyndsey Hall

Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Cinder Marissa Meyer Review Lyndsey's Book Blog

Raise your hand if you’re years behind the curve and have only just gotten to the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer? *Raises hand*

I buddy-read Cinder with one of my Goodreads groups back in July and I actually burned through it way quicker than I should have and skipped ahead of the rest of the group. Sorry guys! But it’s a really great read if you love fairy tale retellings with a twist. Sci-fi isn’t usually my first choice, but I enjoyed this fresh take on a much-loved classic.

TL;DR Cinder, a cyborg, lives in New Beijing and works on a market stall as a mechanic. One day, the prince drops by with an android he needs her to take a look at, but a plague breakout shuts down the market. Cinder’s evil step-mother sells her to a medical study which is testing the plague on cyborgs and looking for a cure. There she discovers the truth about herself and the moon-residing beings called Lunars…

Cinder is set in a futuristic, fantasy version of China, and the Moon is now home to a colony of humanoid creatures called Lunars who possess the ability to manipulate Earthans. A deadly plague has killed thousands of people, and a medical study has been set up to test potential cures on cyborgs – people who are part human, part robot.

“I’m sure I’ll feel much more grateful when I find a guy who thinks complex wiring in a girl is a turn-on.”

As a cyborg, Cinder is treated like a second class citizen, not least by her step-mother, Adri, who blames her for the death of her father years earlier. After an outbreak of plague at a nearby stall forces Cinder to flee the market, and her sweet but spoilt step-sister Peony falls ill, Adri sells Cinder to the medical study out of spite. Desperate to help save her sister’s life, Cinder goes willingly and works with the doctors to discover why she didn’t become infected, but was able to pass the disease on to Peony.

“Imagine there was a cure, but finding it would cost you everything. It would completely ruin your life. What would you do?”

In the meantime, Cinder keeps bumping into the handsome and charming Prince Kai, whose android needs fixing after crashing in possession of an important message. Unfortunately, she’s a little busy being a test subject and trying to hide the fact she’s a cyborg from him to actually fix the robot. That is, until the Lunar Queen decides to make a rare visit to Earth, and specifically to New Beijing, to talk potential marriage plans with the King.

“Prince Kai! Check my fan, I think I’m overheating.”

And, what would any Cinderella retelling be without a ball? Prince Kai convinces Cinder to join him at the ball thrown in honour of the Lunar delegation’s visit, but with no dress and an old, ill-fitting robot foot, how can she possibly accompany the most eligible bachelor in the whole of the Eastern Commonwealth to the biggest party in decades?

“She was a cyborg, and she would never go to a ball.”

As fairy tale retellings go, Cinder is an incredibly inventive and fresh take on an old classic. There are just enough familiar elements to keep it in line with the original, and plenty of new twists to make it a fun read for fairy tale fans (the robot foot instead of a glass slipper is a cool update!).

I gave Cinder 3.5 stars, because whilst I enjoyed it I wasn’t gripped like I hoped. Usually fairy tale retellings are my jam, but sci-fi isn’t, so I didn’t love this one as much as I wanted to. I still plan to carry on reading the rest of the series as that cliffhanger ending was a killer! And I’m hoping to enjoy each book more and more as I get accustomed to the sci-fi elements and get more invested in the characters.

Have you read the Lunar Chronicles? Did you instantly love them, or does the series get better with each book? I’m hoping to read Scarlet next year at some point, once my raging TBR starts to dwindle. Maybe I’ll love another protagonist better, I’m not sure what it was about Cinder that just didn’t click with me, so maybe me and Scarlet will get along better!

Lyndsey

Review: Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

It’s been a couple of months since I read Nevernight now, but I just downloaded the audiobook of Godsgrave and I’m so excited to dive back into this world!

I’d never read any of Jay Kristoff’s books before Nevernight, but I’ve heard good things about the Illuminae series, and Nevernight sounded right up my street. Luckily, it absolutely was! I haven’t read a new fantasy series this good in ages.

TL;DR At just eight years old, Mia Corvere watched her father die. Since then she has trained with her mentor in preparation for applying to enter the Red Church, a group of skilled assassins who live under a mountain. Her long term plan is revenge against the men who killed her dad. Her short term plan is surviving her training.

I’m not sure what I expected from this book, but it definitely wasn’t what I got. The Red Church is basically Hogwarts for teen murderers, and I am here for it. Mia is a wonderfully conflicted mini murderess, whose pet is an undead sort of shadow cat called Mister Kindly. He’s a sarcastic bundle of not-fur. Have you run out to buy this book yet? Just go, you won’t regret it.

“’Never Flinch.’ A cold whisper in her ear. ‘Never fear. And never, ever forget.'”

The classes Mia takes sound utterly fascinating and also deadly, subjects like poisons, weapons training and the art of seduction (because every professional killer needs a few good chat up lines and a come-hither smile). The teachers are mysterious and ruthless, it’s a wonder any of the kids survive their first semester, let alone graduate to become fully-fledged assassins.

“You’ll be a rumor. A whisper. The thought that wakes the bastards of this world sweating in the nevernight. The last thing you will ever be, girl, is someone’s hero.”

Unfortunately, only two of the class can become Blades (super lethal assassin types) after graduation, the rest must stay under the mountain and basically become their servants. Is it any wonder someone is killing off Mia’s class mates one by one? But is it just a ploy to win one of the two coveted Blade positions, or is something bigger going on in the Red Church?

Kristoff’s world-building is crazy amazing in this series, which just adds to the other-worldliness and mystery of the plot and characters. Three suns rise and set over Godsgrave, the city built amongst the bones of a long-dead god, meaning it’s almost never night (hence the title). One of those suns is red, casting a bloody glow over everything every now and then. Kristoff actually got an astrophysicist friend to design a trinary solar system for him, so the whole concept is very accurate and well imagined. A day is called a turn, because the planet still turns even if the sun doesn’t set (I imagine it’s supposed to be at least somewhat similar to Earth, so a day is roughly 24 hours). I just loved the little details the author included, they really make the story feel fully formed.

“The brighter the light, the deeper the shadow.”

There’s a lot of Italian influence in the novel, which you might have guessed from Mia’s name. I wonder whether the strong themes of religion inspired the choice? Either way, it helps to anchor the stranger elements of the world and story in something/somewhere we can all imagine, even if you haven’t visited Italy or the Vatican.

You might have guessed by now, but this is a very graphic series, both violently and sexually. The characters are around sixteen, but this is definitely not YA. In the world of the story, children don’t seem to get much of a childhood, and they are much older and wiser than their years as a result of the environment they’re raised in, so 16 is more like 18, or even older, in the novel.

“The books we love, they love us back. And just as we mark our places in the pages, those pages leave their marks on us.”

I can’t think of a single thing I didn’t like about Nevernight, it was gripping and twisty and stabby and I loved every minute of it. The ending was a surprise, and I’m desperate to get stuck into Godsgrave to see if everything we’re told at the end of book one is true, fingers crossed some of it was just a ruse (no spoilers!).

I’m giving Nevernight five stars because it’s probably my favourite book I’ve read so far this year, I honestly couldn’t get enough of it and must have listened to it every chance I got. I was devastated when it finished and I had to wait three months for the sequel to come out! Definitely read this if you like super dark fantasy with rich world building and plenty of stabbing and sexy times. If you’re not so cool with the graphic elements or swearing, maybe steer clear. But you’ll be missing out 😉

Lyndsey

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Review: The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

I finished The Raven Cycle series! I really enjoyed the series as a whole, and the final book was no different. If you haven’t read any of the first three books you can check out my reviews: The Raven Boys, The Dream Thieves, Blue Lily, Lily Blue. Obviously, there are spoilers for book one in the other two reviews etc. so only read on if you don’t mind being spoiled!

Onwards to my review of The Raven King…

TL;DR The gang’s search for Glendower comes to an end, Blue tests the truth of her prophecy, Piper Greenmantle tries to auction the demon off to the highest bidder and Ronan discovers the connection between his dream thief abilities and Cabeswater. Oh, and there’s lots of kissing.

Where do I start?? This was probably the strangest book in the series, and that’s really saying something. This series is one of the weirdest, eeriest and most magical I’ve ever read. It wasn’t perfect, but I almost loved it more for that.

The main plot lines from the previous books all come to some kind of resolution, even if it’s not quite what we hoped for or expected. The ending leaves a lot to the imagination, but for a series where imagination has been essential throughout, and dreams are an integral part of the narrative, I expected nothing less.

The hunt for Glendower comes to an end, our ships are all ready to make sail (I won’t tell you which ones do!) and the events set into motion in Blue Lily, Lily Blue finally come to a head. The demon found in the caves by Piper and Neeve draws a crowd of magical artefact enthusiasts to Henrietta, but its power puts the entire town in danger and only our favourite foursome can stop the creature.

There are plenty of shocking revelations about the group and their abilities, their ties to Cabeswater, and what Cabeswater really is. I was quite satisfied with what we learned in The Raven King, even if we were left with lots of questions to ponder on our own. I know a lot of readers found the ending really anticlimactic, and this book is certainly not my favourite of the series, I found it less action packed and gripping than the other three (Blue Lily, Lily Blue is my favourite, in case you’re wondering), but I still consider it a worthy finale in many ways. I don’t mind being left with questions, it means I’m still thinking about the book days later, rather than completely forgetting about it the instant I put it down.

Perhaps one of the reasons I wasn’t as frustrated as others when I finished this book is because I read it so long after it was originally published, had seen online how disappointed lots of readers were and could manage my expectations accordingly, and Maggie has recently announced a Ronan trilogy, which will hopefully answer some of my questions. Ronan and Adam have been my favourite characters from the beginning, so I’m really excited to read a trilogy focused on them rather than Blue and Gansey.

My favourite part of the book has nothing to do with our fantastic foursome, or the psychics from 300 Fox Way, or even the Grey Man. My absolute favourite part was when Henry Cheng (one of the Vancouver crowd who idolise Gansey) talked about the language barrier between his thoughts and his words:

“It wasn’t that Henry was less of himself in English. He was less of himself out loud. His native language was thought.”

And how his mother, Seondeok struggled to make herself understood in English and would always say “It is that…but also something more.”

“Something more explained perfectly why he could never say what he meant – something more, by its definition, would always be different than what you already had in your hand.”

It sums up beautifully what it’s like to speak another language and feel like you’re not quite yourself in your second language. You can’t say what you mean with as much clarity and simplicity as in your native language, and you feel like your personality is being filtered through your limited vocabulary. I speak Spanish and on my year abroad in Spain I didn’t feel like myself at all, there’s something about the words we use and the way we express ourselves with language that’s absolutely intrinsic to our identities.

I gave The Raven King 4 stars, as I say it’s not my favourite, in fact I’d go so far as to say it’s my least favourite of the four (and I struggled with a few things in The Dream Thieves) but for one of my new series obsessions that’s definitely not to say it was a bad book or I didn’t love it. The setting and characters are everything in The Raven Cycle, and the moody atmosphere coupled with the mystical elements give it such an intense and claustrophobic feel. I’d definitely recommend reading this series if you love YA fantasy and any of Maggie Stiefvater’s other books.

Have you read The Raven Cycle? Are you dying for the new Ronan trilogy, like me?

Lyndsey