Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Cinder
Author:Marissa Meyer
Release Date: January 5, 2012
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Lunar Chronicles Book #1
ISBN:   0312641893
ISBN13:  9780312641894
Genre: Young Adult
Review Copy Source: Publisher

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.

In this thrilling debut young adult novel, the first of a quartet, Marissa Meyer introduces readers to an unforgettable heroine and a masterfully crafted new world that’s enthralling

I was pretty skeptical about CINDER. The cover is neat but the blurb really didn't get me super excited to read the book. I held out for quite a while before even picking it up out of my TBR pile but I'm glad I did finally decide to read it. When reading the blurb and seeing that the main character Cinder was a Cyborg I figured that meant she was a manufactured robot but in reality it just meant that she was hurt and had metal parts put into her to save her life. Because of that people pretty much treat her like a diseased second class citizen.  Her evil stepmother has guardianship (aka ownership) of her and can treat her pretty much however she wants. She doesnt remember anything about herself or her life before her accident when she became a cyborg and was adopted by a man that died right afterwords leaving her with her stepmother and the story leads us to find out who she really is and what she is destined to do.

Cinder was a great character to get to know. Even though she is treated like crap she goes along her daily business doing what she has to do with her head held high. While working the Prince comes to her for help fixing his android and they seem to instantly have an attraction but because of what she is she doesn't let him get close to her for a long time no matter how hard he tries. I really enjoyed Kai. He did some pretty crappy things towards the end but I think he will redeem himself in future books.

CINDER ended up being an awesome debut novel that I hard a hard time putting down. There is a lot of emotion, There is a lot of creativity, there is a lot of mystery and suspense and Marissa did a really good job of revealing things at a great pace. I did find a few things predictable but I cant wait to see what comes next. SCARLET isn't set to release until 2013 boo ;)

I gave it 4/5 stars