Me on Cinder

Title: Cinder
Author: Marissa Meyer
Release Date: January 3, 2012
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends (Macmillan imprint)

Cinder, while being a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. A second-class citizen with a mysterious past, she's reviled by her stepmother and blames for her stepsister's illness. But when her life suddenly becomes intertwined with Prince Kai's, she finds herself at the centre 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 the world's future.

A futuristic re-telling of the classic Cinderella tale, Cinder is both magical and intriguing, perhaps a little creepy in a futuristic way. There were times when it felt cold or harsh, unwilling to comfort Cinder when she needed help, but it was still like a fairy tale.

By mixing the fairy tale with such a disturbing and different time than the one we live it, it added another layer to the story. A horrific disease, medical experimentation, implanting machine parts in human beings, people living on the moon. Is this what the world will become in 100 years? Maybe 500 or 1000 years? Will we still be human then, or will we be something else?

Cinder was quite possibly my favourite part of the book. As the heroine of a YA novel, you expect her to be flawed, to be different than others, to be relatable as a girl with family problems, unsure of who she is or what she's capable of, and has a crush on an unattainable guy. Most, if not all, teenage readers will have something in common with Cinder. What I liked about her so much was that she was so strong, no pun intended concerning her cyborg parts. Consistently beaten down, she still found a way to climb back up, to keep on going even when things were at their hardest.

Finding a book that has a third person point of view is so refreshing. Yes, it can limit how in depth we can go into the character, but it also gives insight into more than just one person. The chapters that focused on Prince Kai and included Queen Levana hinted at the other sides of the story, the sides that Cinder couldn't see and was unaware of.

This was a storyline that kept shifting and changing, always surprising. It kept me reading right to the end when I wanted to demand to know what happened next. I'm gladly looking forward to the next book, the rest of the series, and anything else Marissa Meyer might write.

(I received an e-galley to review from Macmillan through NetGalley.)