Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Cinder by Marissa Meyer 
Series: The Lunar Chronicles #1
Release Date: January 3rd 2012
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Order: Amazon | Book Depository

Goodreads Summary

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.

The lovely Regina from The Sunflower Pages recommended me this book and I'm so happy she did :)

This book! I can’t even begin to explain how much I loved this book! A fairy tale with a twist that will make sure you never forget it.

Cinder is a cyborg, a mechanic with no family and a horrible stepmother and two sisters. A nobody until the New Beijing prince Kai shows up at her booth and asks her to look at his broken android.  

The plague that has no cure, that is taking most peoples friends and family, infects Cinders younger sister making Cinder the one to blame in her stepmothers eyes. In order for a cure to be found cyborgs are needed to be guinea pigs and sacrifice their lives in order to save humans. Even after the 4^th world war humans still find beings that are “beneath them” that are second class even though they are part human part mechanical. Cinder’s evil stepmother and sister volunteer her to be the test subject in the research for a cure. But instead Cinder finds out she’s immune to the plague that’s wiping cyborgs and humans alike. Not only this but from space a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move onto earth and take over. So basically Earth is screwed either way.

A cyborg Cinderella story set in the future? Erm not really my scene but I’m so happy I got the chance to read it! I don’t really like the whole mechanical scene but Cinderella was one of my favourite stories as a child.

The way the book is written is incredible. I was getting goose bumps just by reading the book, even in the more boring chapters where nothing exciting was happing. Marissa is able to send her readers into the future alongside Cinder and her trusted android Iko. It was really easy to picture everything happening in the space of my bedroom and I can’t remember the last time I was mesmerised by a book this much.

The fact that some bits from Cinderella were in this book made me super happy. The prince, the evil stepmother and two sisters, the ball. Although I would never have imagined Cinderella to have a mechanical foot and hand. I imagined that Cinder would leave her foot when running away from the ball at the end of the night just like Cinderella had with her glass slipper and I screamed in joy when this came true! Leaving this bit out of the book would have been the biggest mistake.

Overall this book was amazingly written and created a great retelling of a classic story. However there were aspects that weren’t developed as much as they could have been. The fact that I’m still confused about the Lunar (moon people), there was no culture even though the book was set in New Beijing. But apart from that I am a massive fan and I need the other books in the series now!