Glitches

When I saw this was listed as book 0.5 of The Lunar Chronicles, I assumed that meant it was a prequel that could stand on its own and should be read first. I suspect, now, that I was mistaken because the characterizations and plotline are incredibly shallow to the point I felt like I was reading a fanfic for a seventeen-season television show of which I've never seen a single episode.

Nothing makes sense. For example:

If Garan cares enough about this child he rescued from a terrible accident and saved by giving her cybernetic prosthetics, why doesn't he interact with her at all? Why does he just refer to her as “the girl” instead of her freaking name when insisting his family take care of her?

If Cinder's being taken into this family, why is she supposed to refer to the parental units as her step parents? Her biological parents are deceased, and she's seemingly being adopted. Wouldn't that make them either her new mother and father or her foster mother and father? I get that this is supposed to be a parallel to Cinderella, but there are specific situations which create step-relatives and those aren't met here.

Why does her “stepmother” and one of the “stepsisters” hate Cinder so much? She's treated poorly for having a “monstrosity” of a cybernetic/prosthetic limb, and I just... can't wrap my head around that. Again, it feels like I'm missing a metric ton of backstory that would come from reading the series and should be provided in a prequel story but wouldn't in a fanfic where everyone's assumed to be familiar with the setting. Is this an alternate timeline wherein prosthetic limbs have never been used before by anyone - cybernetic or otherwise? Is Adri (stepmother) just an absolute, ableist monster? I don't get it! At least the mean “stepsister” has the excuse of being jealous that she has to share a room with her younger sister now because Cinder was given one of the bedrooms, I guess.

Are we supposed to care that Garan (“stepfather”) gets ill with some kind of plague even though there's very little reason to think he even cares about anyone in his family due to how often he's absent and how distant he is in general beyond one scene where he hugs his daughters? I just kind of felt detached and awkward, same as Cinder did, when his family was dropping dramatically to their knees and scream-crying in grief over him having contracted an illness. Also? Probably not a great time in the real world to have to read about someone falling ill with a presumably horrific/deadly/catchy plague/illness, but oh well. Like I said, I really didn't feel anything emotionally and the dramatics felt a bit cringey when I had so little insight into and connection with the family in the story.

Is there something more to why Cinder and an android relate so well to one another? Or is this just the poor girl being gaslighted by her horrible stepmother into feeling inhuman? Seems like there needs to be more context, but right when the comparison is raised the story ends.

So, yeah. I'm extremely lost, here. Lost enough that I don't feel comfortable picking a star rating for this prequel because it feels like it's been improperly labelled as such and is actually some kind of... opening chapter or post-story flashback or something of that sort. It doesn't stand on its own, it doesn't properly introduce characters; it just kind of exists, and seems to assume that readers have knowledge of the characters and worldbuilding nuances. I have neither, but I'm interested in the series, so hopefully I'll be able to come back at a later date and assign a rating based on what it does (or doesn't) contribute to the canon for someone who actually knows the characters.

As it stands, though, the whole thing feels needlessly melodramatic. The stepmother feels like a caricature of pure evil. The stepfather feels like a neglectful jerk. The older sister seems like a brat. The younger sister seems like a naive idiot. They're not particularly engaging characters - just cardboard cutouts of tropes which feel exaggerated and out of place.

And, again, why is the foster/adopted family being referred to as a ‘step' family?! Seriously, if nothing else, I hope the actual novel/s answer that question for me.

It's hard to rate a short story that's pretty much a prologue... This story is very short and though important to Cinder, I really feel like it could have been the beginning to the book rather than a separate entity. It's actually kind of important to the story line as a whole, I feel, though I don't think it comes with the hardcover edition of [b:Cinder|11929762|Cinder |Will Wright|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309913506s/11929762.jpg|16890323]. Though maybe they give a recap in the actual book, I don't know yet.

Overall, it was a fun read. And it got me to be emotional toward the end. The writing seems to be strong enough, but again it's a bit hard to tell. It's got me excited to read [b:Cinder|11929762|Cinder |Will Wright|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309913506s/11929762.jpg|16890323], though!

3.5