Number of pages: 387
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth's fate hinges on one girl... Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She's a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world's future.
Cinder surprised me. A LOT. Cinderella was never my favorite fairy tale. Cinder being a retelling of it, you can understand my skepticism. But skepticism aside, Cinder was completely and utterly amazing. I can't believe that it took me so long to finish it and that I didn't even want to read it in the first place. I'm so glad I fought through the first chapters so I could read the following fascinating ones.
Cinder starts off rather sudden for my taste (after rereading it -I was itching to read it again after finishing it - I appreciated the beginning a lot more! I guess I was just trying to find faults in the book the first time) with Cinder already meeting Prince Kai in the first chapter. And yes you read it right: Cinder is a cyborg mechanic, who has an android for a friend and of course an evil stepmother, who doesn't want Cinder to exist in the first place. And also there is a plague threatening everyone in the planet but that's not the only problem: the Lunar (yes, MOON PEOPLE - who can manipulate bioeletricity to project images and feelings on humans!) want to start a war if Prince Kai doesn't marry the Lunar Queen. You can see now that the plot is more complex (and awesome) than first anticipated.
Cinder is full of twists, surprises, romance and action, which make this book a perfect mix of everything I wish for in a book. Of course it makes it even harder for me to write a review worth of this book's awesomeness. Just believe me, Meyer did an amazing job retelling this fairy tale in a very awesome yet different way. Everything fits so effortlessly together and the characters are well-written and real, even the android and cyborg ones. Meyer's writing flows, as I could read 100 pages without even realizing it.
I'm really glad that I didn't give up on Cinder; for it turned out to be one of my favorite reads this year. It also taught me to not judge a book before reading it. And as you probably noticed, I can't say a bad word about it, this review may seem a bit exaggerated but it isn't, Cinder really couldn't be any better. I can't wait for the following three books (it's a quartet!) to come out to find out more about Cinder and her secrets.
