Book Review: Cinder, by Marissa Meyer
Nov. 7th, 2014 07:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soc_puppetOh my gosh, look at this! It's content! Content that I said I would write! And now I'm actually writing it, here and now! IT'S A MIRACLE!
Moving right along, here is some book-y backstory. It took me a loooong time to pick up this book. ("This book" being Cinder, by Marissa Meyer.) I looked at it in Barnes and Noble once, then put it back down, deciding that it didn't quite grab me. I walked past it in Target on my way to the DVD section with fair frequency, and still didn't think much of it past, "Eh, I dunno. I'd rather spend my money on DVDs or yarn." What finally got me to give it more consideration was when Audible was doing a two-books-for-one-credit sale and it was listed as one of the optional titles. I'm big on audiobooks these days, since I've got that long commute to work.
Not that I picked it up from Audible. No, I decided to wait and give it more thought, and maybe if I saw it again the next time Audible did such a sale, I would do it. And then I saw the audiobook on display at the library and decided to give the blurb a re-read. Set in New Beijing, it read. An Asian Cinderella? I thought. It could be, right? Nay, it must be! And you don't get a much better price than free, whether or not I'd have to return it. So I decided to check it out, in the interest of what I assumed would be both a fairytale revamp (one of my favorite things) with a main character of color (another one of my favorite things).
Oh what disappointment awaited me!
While I found the writing compelling (in that it got me to keep listening straight through to the end even after all the BS inherent to it), it was also a hot mess of racism and ablism. How? Oh, do let me tell you all about it!
Spoiler alert the first: I am, in fact, about to tell you all about it.
Spoiler alert the second: In doing so, I will spoil most likely the entire book for you, or at least huge chunks of it. If you want to read or listen to the book unspoiled, consider this your warning.
It took me four chapters to figure out that the titular character is white* [described as having light brown or dark blonde hair], because Meyer didn't mention anything that specific about her appearance until then. While she mentions that Cinder has cyborg parts, I was unsure for quite a bit longer in the book just how far those appendages extended. For something so important to the main character (mostly in how negative an impact it has on her life, but that's still important), you figure it would come up sooner. In fact, throughout the book, the person with the greatest amount of visual description dedicated to them is the main villain, Queen Levana, and even that's a false description (she uses what's referred to as "the Lunar glamor" to manipulate people's brainwaves so they think she's beautiful/she appears beautiful to them).
* Correction: Meyer has stated that Cinder has light brown skin and hair and looks more-or-less mixed race. The fact that I couldn't discern any of this in a book written in English effectively means that she may as well have been described as white. Lack of description of a character's ethnicity - hell, lack of frequent description of a character's ethnicity - means that they are defaulted to white. end correction
The lack of description doesn't end with the people. I made it through the entire book, and I still have only the vaguest idea of what the "blue fever" (Letumosis) plays out. It goes something like this:
Stage one: Infection period. Person is infected with the plague but shows no outward symptoms.
Stage two: Visible period. Blue spots/rings appear on the infected person's skin, showing that they are infected.
Stage three: Illness sets in. Includes fever, cough, ????? Can last for weeks?
Stage four: Everything gets really extra bad really extra quick? Lasts hours at most?
Stage five: Death. Inevitable.
What the hell are the symptoms? What makes people die from letumosis? What the actual fuck is going on here?
But we were talking about the racism.
As far as I can tell, there are only two "reasons" to make Cinder white.
1) Cinderella is a European fairy tale.
This is bullshit. It is such bullshit I could fertilize my dad's garden for ten years on this idea alone. Cinderella is one of the most culturally universal fairy tales I can think of. In my childhood, I remember reading a Native American version and two different African versions (one set in ancient Egypt, one elsewhere in Africa that I don't have a clear bead on). An acquaintance of mine told me about a specific Japanese variation where the stepsister(s) are (both?) good/helpful, local to a small area, so there are definitely versions that take place in East Asia. Excuse debunked.
2) SPOILER: Cinder can't be of Asian descent/appear Asian because she's of Lunar descent. Moreover, she's of royal Lunar descent.
Okay, why is the Lunar ruling family of European descent? There is literally no reason they have to be white that isn't "racism". It's at least as likely that people of East Asian descent could have colonized the moon as of any other ancestry. Also, let me tell you about Princess Kaguya. This is quite possibly the literal perfect opportunity to include her, and she was nowhere in the book.
Meanwhile, there is only one "reason" to set the story in New Beijing:
1) Prince Kaito, Cinder's love interest and heir to the throne of the Eastern Commonwealth.
Backstory: Queen Levana wants to marry Prince Kai so she can rule both the moon and the Eastern Commonwealth. She would not accept a marriage agreement with the queen of England's third son, who is much closer to her in age (being in his late thirties, while Prince Kai is about seventeen) because he would not inherit the kingdom. All other governments on Earth have elected rulers now.
The problem? This is fiction. Meyer could just as easily made Prince Kai the heir to the English throne (or the Western Commonwealth, or whatever).
Taken together, there is only one actual reason that the story was set in New Beijing with a white protagonist: Racism. The only reason the protagonist is white is because it's easier for white people to write about white people, and many of us don't even think of writing outside our race. The only reason to set the story in New Beijing with a white protagonist is for an "exotic" background. No inherent element of the Eastern Commonwealth is vital to the story (and Meyer had all of China's wealth of history and traditional medical practices at her disposal, just to start with), nor is any element of Cinder's character or background inherently white. Someone more knowledgeable about Chinese culture would probably also confirm that most of the values in the book are decidedly Western, especially regarding the treatment of family, but I unfortunately have only suspicions. [Edit: Writing With Color on Tumblr discusses the problem(s) with writing a pan-Asian country/society here, which is something I hadn't even considered but definitely applies to the Eastern Commonwealth, and almost certainly other countries in the book.]
Now, I believe I mentioned ablism, yes? Moving on to that topic.
In addition to being white, Cinder is also a cyborg. She has cybernetic prosthetics, specifically one leg and one hand (though I don't remember which is which). Continuing with the lack-of-description problem, I'm still not entirely sure how much of Cinder is cybernetic. For a good few chapters, I thought that her entire arm was cybernetic rather than just her hand and was very confused when she mentioned in narration that she had goosebumps on both her arms. Unfortunately, the problem doesn't particularly lie with the extent of her prosthetics.
See, in Cinder's world, cyborgs are literally second-class citizens. Cinder mentions several times that she is effectively owned by her "step-mother" (really her adoptive mother, but calling her "step-mother" fits in so much better with the European telling of the tale!), and that all of the money she makes as a mechanic goes straight into her step-mother's account. Cinder sees none of it. Her step-mother also has no legal obligation to keep her prosthetic limbs in good repair or in appropriate size for a growing girl, the government apparently will not provide any replacements, and Cinder cannot use her own money for the job, so she starts the book with a foot that's several sizes too small and causes her actual physical pain. Possibly like a shoe that's too small, IDK.
In addition to being effectively owned by her step-mother and not actually getting to keep any of the money she makes, there's the Cyborg Draft. Basically, the government has the ID chip numbers of all cyborgs and has the ability to randomly call in any one of them to act as test subjects for potential letumosis cures. There have been no survivors so far. If you think it sounds incredibly gross to single out one group of people for mandatory and lethal testing at the whim of the government, you would be exactly right.
I'm going to get into spoiler territory again here, because the head doctor of the letumosis research team is targeting cyborgs on purpose - and that purpose is to find the missing Lunar princess, the person with the best chance of overthrowing the tyrannical Queen Levana. Does that make it okay that he's coopted government resources and targeted an entire class of people for probable death? Not even slightly.
The in-book "logic" for the Cyborg Draft? Well, cyborgs have only escaped death through the intervention of science; therefore, they owe their very lives and existences to science.
The ablism doesn't stop there. In the market where Cinder works as a mechanic, the shopkeepers to either side of her and across from her are all deeply ablist and scorn her for ...having prosthetic limbs. Cinder has even internalized a great deal of this ablist thinking, and switches between two extreme positions: feeling that it is incredibly unfair that she in particular should be singled out and discriminated against simply because she is cyborg, which was done to her without her choice in the matter; and agreeing with the ablist propaganda, that she owes her life to science and/or the government and may even be a monster.
All of this is troubling on its own (Edit: and, to a horrifying extent, reflects the world as it is now /edit), but nowhere in the book is any mention of a cyborg rights movement. No one is calling out the Cyborg Draft as the ablist nightmare that it is. No one is refusing to get cybernetic limbs or other cybernetic treatments in order to avoid the draft and the discrimination, or any other reason, for that matter. If you are physically disabled, it is apparently mandatory that you become a cyborg, but it is not mandatory that the government - or anyone else, for that matter, particularly any legal guardian you may have - provide for the upkeep of your cybernetics. And there is not one mention in the book of people protesting against that.
Anyway, that's what I remember being horrified by in the book. There are probably reviewers out there who would be able to critique every little sociological bit and piece and point out how wrongity-wrong-wrong it all is, but that's not what I was going for in this review (though I do enjoy reading that sort of review all too often). I was going for how this book is a hot mess of racism and ablism, and I think I proved that. Read with caution, or at least with knowledge, if you choose to read it.
Moving right along, here is some book-y backstory. It took me a loooong time to pick up this book. ("This book" being Cinder, by Marissa Meyer.) I looked at it in Barnes and Noble once, then put it back down, deciding that it didn't quite grab me. I walked past it in Target on my way to the DVD section with fair frequency, and still didn't think much of it past, "Eh, I dunno. I'd rather spend my money on DVDs or yarn." What finally got me to give it more consideration was when Audible was doing a two-books-for-one-credit sale and it was listed as one of the optional titles. I'm big on audiobooks these days, since I've got that long commute to work.
Not that I picked it up from Audible. No, I decided to wait and give it more thought, and maybe if I saw it again the next time Audible did such a sale, I would do it. And then I saw the audiobook on display at the library and decided to give the blurb a re-read. Set in New Beijing, it read. An Asian Cinderella? I thought. It could be, right? Nay, it must be! And you don't get a much better price than free, whether or not I'd have to return it. So I decided to check it out, in the interest of what I assumed would be both a fairytale revamp (one of my favorite things) with a main character of color (another one of my favorite things).
Oh what disappointment awaited me!
While I found the writing compelling (in that it got me to keep listening straight through to the end even after all the BS inherent to it), it was also a hot mess of racism and ablism. How? Oh, do let me tell you all about it!
Spoiler alert the first: I am, in fact, about to tell you all about it.
Spoiler alert the second: In doing so, I will spoil most likely the entire book for you, or at least huge chunks of it. If you want to read or listen to the book unspoiled, consider this your warning.
It took me four chapters to figure out that the titular character is white* [described as having light brown or dark blonde hair], because Meyer didn't mention anything that specific about her appearance until then. While she mentions that Cinder has cyborg parts, I was unsure for quite a bit longer in the book just how far those appendages extended. For something so important to the main character (mostly in how negative an impact it has on her life, but that's still important), you figure it would come up sooner. In fact, throughout the book, the person with the greatest amount of visual description dedicated to them is the main villain, Queen Levana, and even that's a false description (she uses what's referred to as "the Lunar glamor" to manipulate people's brainwaves so they think she's beautiful/she appears beautiful to them).
* Correction: Meyer has stated that Cinder has light brown skin and hair and looks more-or-less mixed race. The fact that I couldn't discern any of this in a book written in English effectively means that she may as well have been described as white. Lack of description of a character's ethnicity - hell, lack of frequent description of a character's ethnicity - means that they are defaulted to white. end correction
The lack of description doesn't end with the people. I made it through the entire book, and I still have only the vaguest idea of what the "blue fever" (Letumosis) plays out. It goes something like this:
Stage one: Infection period. Person is infected with the plague but shows no outward symptoms.
Stage two: Visible period. Blue spots/rings appear on the infected person's skin, showing that they are infected.
Stage three: Illness sets in. Includes fever, cough, ????? Can last for weeks?
Stage four: Everything gets really extra bad really extra quick? Lasts hours at most?
Stage five: Death. Inevitable.
What the hell are the symptoms? What makes people die from letumosis? What the actual fuck is going on here?
But we were talking about the racism.
As far as I can tell, there are only two "reasons" to make Cinder white.
1) Cinderella is a European fairy tale.
This is bullshit. It is such bullshit I could fertilize my dad's garden for ten years on this idea alone. Cinderella is one of the most culturally universal fairy tales I can think of. In my childhood, I remember reading a Native American version and two different African versions (one set in ancient Egypt, one elsewhere in Africa that I don't have a clear bead on). An acquaintance of mine told me about a specific Japanese variation where the stepsister(s) are (both?) good/helpful, local to a small area, so there are definitely versions that take place in East Asia. Excuse debunked.
2) SPOILER: Cinder can't be of Asian descent/appear Asian because she's of Lunar descent. Moreover, she's of royal Lunar descent.
Okay, why is the Lunar ruling family of European descent? There is literally no reason they have to be white that isn't "racism". It's at least as likely that people of East Asian descent could have colonized the moon as of any other ancestry. Also, let me tell you about Princess Kaguya. This is quite possibly the literal perfect opportunity to include her, and she was nowhere in the book.
Meanwhile, there is only one "reason" to set the story in New Beijing:
1) Prince Kaito, Cinder's love interest and heir to the throne of the Eastern Commonwealth.
Backstory: Queen Levana wants to marry Prince Kai so she can rule both the moon and the Eastern Commonwealth. She would not accept a marriage agreement with the queen of England's third son, who is much closer to her in age (being in his late thirties, while Prince Kai is about seventeen) because he would not inherit the kingdom. All other governments on Earth have elected rulers now.
The problem? This is fiction. Meyer could just as easily made Prince Kai the heir to the English throne (or the Western Commonwealth, or whatever).
Taken together, there is only one actual reason that the story was set in New Beijing with a white protagonist: Racism. The only reason the protagonist is white is because it's easier for white people to write about white people, and many of us don't even think of writing outside our race. The only reason to set the story in New Beijing with a white protagonist is for an "exotic" background. No inherent element of the Eastern Commonwealth is vital to the story (and Meyer had all of China's wealth of history and traditional medical practices at her disposal, just to start with), nor is any element of Cinder's character or background inherently white. Someone more knowledgeable about Chinese culture would probably also confirm that most of the values in the book are decidedly Western, especially regarding the treatment of family, but I unfortunately have only suspicions. [Edit: Writing With Color on Tumblr discusses the problem(s) with writing a pan-Asian country/society here, which is something I hadn't even considered but definitely applies to the Eastern Commonwealth, and almost certainly other countries in the book.]
Now, I believe I mentioned ablism, yes? Moving on to that topic.
In addition to being white, Cinder is also a cyborg. She has cybernetic prosthetics, specifically one leg and one hand (though I don't remember which is which). Continuing with the lack-of-description problem, I'm still not entirely sure how much of Cinder is cybernetic. For a good few chapters, I thought that her entire arm was cybernetic rather than just her hand and was very confused when she mentioned in narration that she had goosebumps on both her arms. Unfortunately, the problem doesn't particularly lie with the extent of her prosthetics.
See, in Cinder's world, cyborgs are literally second-class citizens. Cinder mentions several times that she is effectively owned by her "step-mother" (really her adoptive mother, but calling her "step-mother" fits in so much better with the European telling of the tale!), and that all of the money she makes as a mechanic goes straight into her step-mother's account. Cinder sees none of it. Her step-mother also has no legal obligation to keep her prosthetic limbs in good repair or in appropriate size for a growing girl, the government apparently will not provide any replacements, and Cinder cannot use her own money for the job, so she starts the book with a foot that's several sizes too small and causes her actual physical pain. Possibly like a shoe that's too small, IDK.
In addition to being effectively owned by her step-mother and not actually getting to keep any of the money she makes, there's the Cyborg Draft. Basically, the government has the ID chip numbers of all cyborgs and has the ability to randomly call in any one of them to act as test subjects for potential letumosis cures. There have been no survivors so far. If you think it sounds incredibly gross to single out one group of people for mandatory and lethal testing at the whim of the government, you would be exactly right.
I'm going to get into spoiler territory again here, because the head doctor of the letumosis research team is targeting cyborgs on purpose - and that purpose is to find the missing Lunar princess, the person with the best chance of overthrowing the tyrannical Queen Levana. Does that make it okay that he's coopted government resources and targeted an entire class of people for probable death? Not even slightly.
The in-book "logic" for the Cyborg Draft? Well, cyborgs have only escaped death through the intervention of science; therefore, they owe their very lives and existences to science.
The ablism doesn't stop there. In the market where Cinder works as a mechanic, the shopkeepers to either side of her and across from her are all deeply ablist and scorn her for ...having prosthetic limbs. Cinder has even internalized a great deal of this ablist thinking, and switches between two extreme positions: feeling that it is incredibly unfair that she in particular should be singled out and discriminated against simply because she is cyborg, which was done to her without her choice in the matter; and agreeing with the ablist propaganda, that she owes her life to science and/or the government and may even be a monster.
All of this is troubling on its own (Edit: and, to a horrifying extent, reflects the world as it is now /edit), but nowhere in the book is any mention of a cyborg rights movement. No one is calling out the Cyborg Draft as the ablist nightmare that it is. No one is refusing to get cybernetic limbs or other cybernetic treatments in order to avoid the draft and the discrimination, or any other reason, for that matter. If you are physically disabled, it is apparently mandatory that you become a cyborg, but it is not mandatory that the government - or anyone else, for that matter, particularly any legal guardian you may have - provide for the upkeep of your cybernetics. And there is not one mention in the book of people protesting against that.
Anyway, that's what I remember being horrified by in the book. There are probably reviewers out there who would be able to critique every little sociological bit and piece and point out how wrongity-wrong-wrong it all is, but that's not what I was going for in this review (though I do enjoy reading that sort of review all too often). I was going for how this book is a hot mess of racism and ablism, and I think I proved that. Read with caution, or at least with knowledge, if you choose to read it.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-08 05:18 am (UTC)Also, an early version of Cinderella was actually Chinese. So like... why set Cinderella in a Chinese-inspired setting but make her white. That makes no sense...?
no subject
Date: 2014-11-10 03:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-08 05:39 pm (UTC)I always imagined Cinder (and, spoilers, Queen Levana) as *Japanese*, because the book clearly started as a Sailor Moon fanfic. I can't remember if there are specific indications to the contrary ... I'm going to have to consult with the Future of Fandom (and a cup of coffee) and get back to you, I'm too foggy to remember, at the moment.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-08 07:40 pm (UTC)I'd buy the story starting out as Sailor Moon fanfic, especially since Meyer has stated that she started out as a Sailor Moon fanfic writer, but there are plenty of people who will deny that Usagi is Japanese. Though this does put me in a trap, since most of those people use the defense that "she has blonde hair and blue eyes!!!eleventy!", and I've just said the same thing above. *sigh* (I'd go on about what the cultural differences and implications are here, but I've got a meeting I'm late for, so.)
If you can remember or find any other physical descriptions that suggest otherwise, I'd love to hear it and be slightly less angry with the book, but the ablism still holds.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-10 01:35 am (UTC)Sort of on-topic: have you ever read Malinda Lo's Ash? It's a reimagining of the Cinderella fairytale in which Cinderella, referred to as Ash here, is a lesbian who falls in love with the King's huntress Kaisa. It's quite good and Lo in general is really good about diversity in her work. In the universe of Lo's YA fantasy novels, like Ash and also Huntress (terrific book too), LGBTQIA people are a visible part of the world and there are no issues.
It's been a while since I read Ash so I don't remember if Lo specified, but based on the cover I did not read her as white but as East Asian.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-10 03:49 pm (UTC)I have read it, actually :) I've got a copy of one of her more recent books, Adaptation, in my To Read pile. Lo does good work :3b
no subject
Date: 2014-11-10 05:10 pm (UTC)