Book Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Goodreads Synopsis: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.

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Wow...Just wow !!!

I will be perfectly honest, I had come across this novel on Goodreads before and it didn't really interest me. I am very hard to please and sometimes judge the book simply on the synopsis without reading any samples of the writing itself. So I had passed over Cinder once before without a second thought.


And man was that one of the bigger mistakes I had made !!

This novel went above and beyond my expectations. I bought it because it was heavily recommended to me by a Twitter friend who was insistent that I read it. So I went and downloaded a sample and those few chapters were incredible. The premise is fresh : a cyborg/ human/ supernatural creature set to an old fairy tale we all know: Cinderella. How could that not be good? And just the beginning was enough to send me to my computer to order it in hardcover because I'm one of those people who need a physical book to read. But once I opened it, I did not stop reading the first night until I realized it was 4 am and I needed to sleep. I started reading it again the next afternoon and finished it just a half hour ago. So good.

I won't reveal too much because I want everyone to go read this book.

Cinder is our 16 year old cyborg/mechanic who lives on earth in a place called the commonwealth but it seems like this planet is more out of Stars Wars. But the jarring surroundings were so refreshing and unlike anything I had read before that it didn't bother me and I just fell into the story. It had a definite feel of partial dystopian just because Earth is no longer the Earth that we know. There was was a 4th world war and plagues that changed the populations and countries immensely into what the story takes place in now.

This world is filled with cyborgs, humans,androids, robots and evil mind manipulating creatures known as Lunars (who of no surprise, come from the moon)  Essentially it was a plot that was filled with things we hadn't really ever seen in young adult literature! And as we all have come to realize, that it's a rare find and was a long time coming.

This book, it was not like any other Cinderella adaptation I had read before. It relied more on the strength and wit of the main heroine then it did on some ridiculous romantic plot. There was elements of romance but it was so subtle that it did not overshadow the main objective of the story, which was the journey of this part machine/ part human teenage girl. It was the best possible mix of Terminator, Cinderella, Star Wars, Star Trek and a little dash of Mortal Instruments thrown in for kicks.

In other words... IT WAS SPECTACULAR.

I haven't read a book that left me this breathless in a very long time. I give it 5 stars !! I can't wait for the second book Scarlet to come in the mail. I literally grabbed my iPad and ordered a hardcover copy of the next book before I was even halfway finished with the first book. And now I will pay it forward by recommending that everyone read this book.  You really won't regret it !