Literature Overall, a solid read.
The Lunar Chronicles' first installment, Cinder, is an entertaining book and one of the more creative adaptations of Cinderella I've seen in a long while. The story reads pretty smoothly and hooks you in easily. Meyer's writing is poetic in sense, without falling into Purple Prose. The story shifts from point of views in different chapters, from the protagonist to the doctor to the love interest and back again, but never does it get confusing nor repetitive. The characters are fun and have great dynamic with each other.
I have only two complaints. The first is the lack of any setting development throughout the story. It takes place in future New Beijing, yet other than the title there wasn't much about the cultures or customs. It would've been nice to see more done with the setting. The second complaint is the foreshadowing, it was really heavy-handed and gave away the twist at the end pretty early into the story.
Overall, it has it's flaws, but they never detract from the story. I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who's looking for a fun read.
Literature Breezy Read, Medicore Everything Else
I liken this series to a summer blockbuster, one that manages to earn a profit at the box office but is forgotten before the year is out. You enjoy it while watching it, but once it's over you can't help but think about the flaws: lackluster world building, character decisions that don't make much sense, trite attempts at incorporating plot points from fairy tales, and a lack of defined character arcs in favor of poorly written romance subplots.
The world building here is very superficial. Sure, there are robots and cyborgs and moon people, but it doesn't feel like much has changed. Not helping matters is the fact that Meyer clearly didn't do her research, as both future-China and future-France feel like pastiches of American culture painted over with an Asian/European brush instead of very different places. For a world that takes place in the far off future, it sure doesn't feel like it.
The characters range from somewhat likable to very annoying. Personally, I found Iko's comic relief grating and Scarlet unlikable and mostly useless. Cinder is rather one note and Meyer's attempts to create a Han Solo-esque Lovable Rogue in Carswell fell flat on their face. There was far more potential in Cress' arc than in all of Cinder's, and Winter felt like an accessory in the book that's named after her.
Honestly, I found Levana more interesting by virtue of her being smarter than the main crew. One of them has a computer in her brain, one of them is an AI, one of them is a hacker and both her and another character are far more familiar with Luna's strengths and weaknesses and none of these characters were able to come up with a good plan on how to take Levana down?? It felt less like a natural progression and more like Meyer wanted to draw out the plot.
I think my biggest question is the decision to keep Cinder's true heritage as a reveal. According to Meyer it was supposed to be obvious, but doesn't that just render all the foreshadowing redundant? Why not use dramatic irony instead?
The most positive thing I can say about the series is that the writing style makes for a quick read. The pacing is generally good, if a bit sluggish in its later half.