Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

Wie Monde so silbern by Marissa Meyer

40 reviews

ashmeanything's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

It's always cool when something defies your expectations - I have had this book on my radar since it came out when I was a teenager. My rationale was simple: a retelling of Cinderella seems like something I'd like, and her being a robot is a bonus. Finally picking this book up over a decade later, I was delighted to see the unique and well-crafted world Meyer has built around this story. Being a YA novel with more of a character focus, we don't get tons of information about <i>why</i> things are this way, but that doesn't bother me. I loved seeing the spin on world cultures following a plague, two more world wars, and complete restructuring of global politics. It expanded the Cinderella character with tastes of a bigger world but still kept a lighthearted and pleasant flow that felt appropriate for the tone. I'm glad I finally read it and will continue the series at some point.

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uselesspirateraven's review against another edition

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adventurous funny inspiring medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0


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isabel_is_reading's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.75

I found this book to have a very interesting setup and the author is definitely talented. A Cyborg Cinderella living in a post apocalyptic futuristic Beijing is a very interesting premise. However, I do think the book wasn’t executed in the best way. I’m going to split this up into sections on characters, plot, world building, and writing. 

Characters 
  • Cinder- Cinder is a pretty lovable character, she’s stubborn, caring, kind and tomboyish. I liked the fact she’s a talented mechanic and I enjoyed her relationship with Iko and her younger step-sister. She played an active role in the story, which is always a good thing. 
  • Kai- Kai is an interesting twist to the ‘Prince charming’ character, he’s  focused, he’s pretty smart and he has always wanted to lead his country. But, I got so annoyed with the way he dealt with the marriage storyline. 
*Let my dramatic interpretation begin* 
“We’re going to war!” 💂🏻
“No, I am going to marry her and avoid war!” 🤴🏻
 “No, you can’t marry her, war is coming anyway and she might kill you!” 💂🏻
“Despite the fact that I know that marrying her will not help with previous problems and It might hurt me I’m still going to do it for no reason.”
“No, don’t marry her! She’s evil” 👩🏽‍🔧
“ I have to marry her!” 
“I am evil and I will kill your loved one if you don’t marry me!” 🦹🏽‍♀️
“ I am sorry evil one, now that you want to kill my loved one, so now there is an actual reason to marry you I can’t marry you…despite the fact that I was going to marry you like...one second ago!” 
LIKE, Why!!!! Your supposed to be smart, why are you changing ur mind in 6 seconds! 
I’m a Libra and I’m not this indecisive. 
Rhe rest of the characters we one dimensional and forgettable so I don’t have much to say. 
Plot
I found the plot to be pretty interesting, but predictable. Now you can kinda expect this from a retelling since the basic plot outline is already laid out for you and sent it from an old very well-known fairytale. Most people know how the basic structure is gonna go, but some of the twist which were supposed to be impactful, were pretty obvious to me since the beginning. I’m not a huge fan of this genre anymore, but if you enjoy young adult fantasy you might like it. The romance was ok, but it was to insta loving for me and I wish there was a better foundation for the realtinonship.
World building 
The world building is my biggest problem with this novel despite the fact, it was the reason why I actually wanted to pick it up. For one this is in a futuristic Beijing and I wanted to see what it would be like to be in this world white with new technology and especially with a culture that isn’t represented a lot and young adult fiction, especially during the time this book was written. However, this wasn’t really explored. I wish we got more details of how life is to live in this area. I wanted to see more about how the world works and the information that we are given is just confusing. 

The cyborg discrimination makes no sense to me.

Just to simplify things;
~Cyborgs are people who have one or more metal parts. A human becomes a cyborg when they experience an accident and need this technology to, you know, NOT DIE.
~Androids are robotic machines that are programmed to act like humans. They function according to commands.
~Lunars are people who posses magic and live on the moon. They have the ability to mind control (glamour) humans.

The biggest problem that I have with the world building is that I don’t understand why cyborgs are look down upon and discriminated in society. I mean first of all the cyborg is just a person who have metal part so someone who for example, gets a prosthetic leg and maybe a prosthetic arm is going to be “ more human” then someone who has like a fully metal brain and heart and lungs and arms and legs, and just everything as prosthetic. So if the problem is that they’re discriminated because they’re not fully human wouldn’t certain individuals be treated better than other individuals? Just like the same way with real life racism individuals wear darker skin experience, colorism compared to light skin individuals who don’t experience colorism. Also, I just don’t understand how someone being saved by new technology that gives him another chance at life after horrible accident would be treated badly by society that just doesn’t make sense to me at all and the author doesn’t explain it in a way that makes sense.
Writing
Vanity is a factor, but it is more a question of control. It is easier to trick others into perceiving you as beautiful if you can convince yourself you are beautiful. But mirrors have an uncanny way of telling the truth.”
This is a debut novel and the writing is actually pretty good 👍🏻. 

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noellegrace8's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

This is such a cool modern (future, actually??) retelling of Cinderella. She is NOTHING like any Cinderella we've read or watched before. She is a mechnic with a good portion of her body being mechanical in and of itself. Meyer does a fantastic job creating interesting plot points that surprise the reader yet also point them to the original source material of Cinderella. Overall a quick-paced, clever book. I can't wait to read the next installments! The few issues I had with the book were just that it was a bit hard to get into at first, especially because some of the characters weren't as interesting as they could have been, and sometimes the word usage was odd, almost like she used the word adjacent to what she actually meant.

I don't include the audio performer in my overall star review, but I'd give Rebecca Soler 4/5. There isn't much to say outside of her performance falling a bit flat. It wasn't actively bad, but there wasn't enough excitement and variance in her narration to intrigue me; my inner reading dialogue is much more enthusiastic than her performance itself is.

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campredwood's review against another edition

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adventurous dark inspiring medium-paced

3.5


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jessicadoom's review against another edition

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funny hopeful mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

After reading Renegades, I had high hopes for the rest of Marissa Meyer's books. World-building wise, I was still very much impressed. And the story was great! There was just something missing to keep it from being a full 4 stars. Maybe it was the insta-love. Maybe the fact that I called the twist from very early on. Not sure, but I did still enjoy it! Just not yet ready to pick up the next book in the series.

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kal_el_'s review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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smileypers0n's review against another edition

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adventurous funny medium-paced
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

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modernhobbitvibes's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

2.75

It wasn't BAD by any means, just a bit YA-y in places, and not my usual. Seeing the Cinderella adaptation bits was probably the best part.

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passionatereader78's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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