Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Cinder is a cyborg—human with mechanical parts that were inserted after a near-fatal hovercraft accident when she was eleven years old. She doesn't remember anything about her life before the accident, and the only life she knows now is drudgery working for her cruel stepmother as a mechanic in New Beijing. But when the prince commissions her to repair his android and the plague strikes close to Cinder, she is suddenly exposed to a new world of secrets and politics that will help her unlock her past, and put her in danger.

Marissa Meyer's debut novel is a fun sci-fi take on the classic Cinderella fairy tale. Meyer's futuristic Beijing is imaginative and a fascinating setting for the story to unfold. There's a lot happening to Cinder in the very beginning of the book to suck the reader in, but the drama surrounding Cinder's past and the political struggles of Prince Kai aren't a huge mystery to the reader. Still, it's easy to just go with it considering that the growing relationship between the heroine and her prince is a lot of fun, and Cinder has a hard time fighting her attraction for him and at the same time hiding the fact that she's a cyborg. There are a couple of twists toward the end of the novel that help set up a few more fairy tale-esque mysteries to explore in future Lunar Chronicles installments, but Cinder winds down pretty quickly with a bit of a cliffhanger ending. This smart and unusual combination of fairy tales and interplanetary politics is engaging, and readers will look forward to future books in this fun new series.

Cover Comments: I like the bright red shoe, and the mechanical parts in the leg, but I admit that I am not a huge fan of the font that the title is in. Oh well, that's just a small thing!

ARC provided by publisher.

Check out the trailer, too!