Prompt – A book with a robot, cyborg or AI character
Medium – Audiobook
About the Book – Linh Cinder lives with her Guardian and two step-sisters, Peony and Pearl, in New Beijing in the distant future. She is an expert mechanic and works to earn money for her horrible guardian and her sisters to live on. The world is being plagued by a horrible disease, called letamosis (which bears some interesting parallels to coronavirus!), and soon, Cinder’s youngest and favourite step-sister, Peony, falls prey to the disease. Shortly after, Cinder finds that she is immune to the disease, but there are also other things that she must find out about herself. The book speeds towards the new Emperor’s coronation and the great ball that he holds after, where rumours say that he will announce the name of his new wife…
My Rating – 8/10. I thought this book was really interesting and a novel retelling of the classic fairy tale. The main character, Cinder the cyborg, is fascinating – she’s the traditional Cinderella character with more gumption and a far more interesting backstory! I really enjoyed her relationship particularly with the android Iko, which didn’t really have any parallels with the fairy story, but did give Cinder a much-needed friend. Her Prince Charming (Emperor Kaito) is kind and sweet, if a bit short-sighted, not seeming to realise what is right in front of him (a murder plot, a cyborg love interest, the chance of a cure for letamosis). I loved the world-building that the author did – the book is set in New Beijing, within the Eastern Commonwealth – a commonwealth made up of countries in the Far East of Asia, such as China, Japan and the Philippines. The world is a nice fusion of traditional, modern and futuristic elements.
This book lent itself really well to being an audiobook – I don’t think I would have engaged with it in the same way as a written book. The narrator was fantastic – she was one of the best ‘American female’ voices I have ever heard in an audiobook – alongside Michelle Obama and the lady who voiced the Throne of Glass books. The characters each had a separate ‘voice’ – I never got confused about who was talking, and her range of accents was fantastic. If you are thinking of reading this book, I would truly recommend that you try a sample of the audiobook before getting hold of a hard copy of the book.
Would I read/listen to it again? Yes, I think so. I would also like to listen to the rest in the series, which are all futuristic re-tellings of fairytales – although it will be a while before I buy any new books!
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