ŷ������

Something interesting is that this book is a sci-fi dystopian fairytale retelling imagining what the story of Cinderella would look like in a version of China hundreds of years in the future, with robots and cyborgs and moon people and hot princes and a sprinkle of magic, and yet it manages to be pretty boring.

So one of the only interesting things about this book is how boring it manages to be, in spite of the odds.

I want to shout out 2015 me for taking one for the team and reading this book, because in 2015 I read books as if I were a goat. Like, a goat eating. You know how a goat eats anything, including trash, with no real preference, or at least there is a children’s book that gives that indication and allows for me to believe in it as if it is science even today, as an adult person? That’s how I read books in 2015. I would just force myself through whatever, caring not if it was boring or terrible, only if it was nearby and had pages and I could toss it on the ol�� reading challenge.

Even in 2015, when I had no discernible taste of any kind, I knew this book was no higher than 3.5 stars. Because it is uninteresting. Because there are only two things about this book that are, in fact, interesting:

1) space hijinks (this book is pre-space hijinks)
2) certain characters (these characters are not present enough, or on some occasions present at all, in this book)

The reason this is a 3.5 star read, and not, say, a 2 star one for the crimes against entertainment it has committed, is the Sheer Potential my dear boy.

This is a reallyreallyreally interesting idea. I love fairytales. I love retellings. I don’t really love space and I definitely don’t love sci-fi and I surely am not interested in cyborgs of any kind, but even I can admit the interest level of this concept is High AF.

Also, it gets so good later on. When all the fairytales get all tangled up and all the fairytale people are friends and some of them are hot space pirates and some of them are hacker nerds with creepy-long hair.

This book is not exciting, but if you allow yourself to get distracted and also you are rereading the series and you know what is coming, you can get excited using your own energy about what is to come.

I don’t know what 2015 me’s reasoning was in giving this 3.5 stars. Maybe I thought it sounded good?

Bottom line: WHO CARES??!! Also, I care.

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pre-review
list of things 2015 me and current me agree on:
- One Direction Take Me Home Yearbook Edition is a musical masterwork
- the idea that you can get salmonella from eating cookie dough is a myth perpetuated by the government to prevent people from having a good time
- Cinder is a 3.5 star read.

review to come!!

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currently-reading update

i've always said that the best time to begin a reread of a very long and addicting series is right as the busiest part of the semester begins :)