Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Cinder
Marissa Meyer
Series: Lunar Chronicles #1
Publication date: January 3rd 2012 by Feiwel & Friends
Rating: 5 stars

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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.

ALL THE AWARDS!!

All of them.

Seriously, who thought a book about Robot Cinderella would be so good?

This is probably the best fairy tale retelling I have ever read. Ever. And I'm extremely angry at myself for not having read this before now, because this is brilliant.

Cinder is a cyborg who works as a mechanic to support her (evil) stepmother and two stepsisters. It's while she's at her booth in the market place one day that she meets the Prince, Kai, who comes looking for her due to her amazing skills at mechanics and asks her to fix his droid. As if meeting the Prince wasn't enough excitement for a day, one of the bakers there shows signs of having letumosis, a plague that has been terrorizing the world.

It's no surprise that after all of that happens, Cinder's life turns upside down.

One of Cinder's stepsisters, the one she actually loves, catches the plague while helping her scavenge the junkyard. Prince Kai shows some interest in her, but he has no idea she's a cyborg. And Cinder, after her stepmother lives up to everyone's expectations of being evil, finds out that her past is even more mysterious and tragic than she first thought.

I'm still a little bit in awe of how freaking amazing Cinder is. Even thought the story is a new take on Cinderella and you can probably figure out most of the key plot points, it is, hands down, one of the most original and amazingly written books I've ever had the pleasure of reading. In just a few chapters I could already tell it would turn out to be one of my favorite books, and I'm hoping the second installment of the series, Scarlet, will be just as good, if not better, than Cinder.