Audiobook Review: Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #1) by Marissa Meyer

I don't read very much young adult and I usually only pick up titles that a wide range of readers have enjoyed. Cinder is the first book in The Lunar Chronicles series and since the final book came out last year, I have been looking forward to giving the series a try. I listened to this first book on audio from Overdrive and it was definitely a good choice. I had similar good luck with listening to The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins on audio. Young adult novels as audiobooks seem to be the best way for me to ingest the stories.

Each book in this series is a sci-fi retelling of a fairytale. Cinder is a retelling of Cinderella where the princess is a cyborg. Meyer did a fantastic job of incorporating elements of the original fairytale into a very unique world. There were hints to other fairytales as well which made me eager to read the other books in the series. The writing was fast-paced and engaging and although I did figure out the major twist pretty early on, that didn't deter me from enjoying the book as a whole. If you don't read very much young adult, I think it is best to go in to these books looking for a good time and not to overanalyze every element.

As an audiobook, I thought this was great. Rebecca Soler narrates the book (and, I believe, the entire series) and she did an incredible job with all of the different voices. She was both female and male characters, droids, characters with accents and I was shocked at how effortlessly she flowed between them all. I will no doubt be reading all of the books in the series on audio if she is the narrator.

If a Cinderella-as-a-cyborg retelling sounds fun to you, I absolutely recommend giving this a read. And if you enjoy audiobooks or are like me and don't listen to a lot of them, I would give this a whirl in that format as well. It is definitely lighter than The Hunger Games but the interesting plot and engaging writing will suck you in in just the same way.