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.

This was the first time I read a fairy tale re-telling, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I wondered how suspenseful it would be if the plot was very close to the Cinderella story, and I knew all along how it would end. But that wasn’t the case. Many elements are the same – Cider’s an orphan who lives with her evil stepmother and stepsisters (though only one of her stepsisters is evil). The budding romance between Cinder and Prince Kai is reminiscent of the original story. (I loved how Meyer tied in the glass slipper!) But the similarities end there.

The world of the story is totally different. Cinder takes place in a futuristic New Beijing, after the 4th World War. Cider is a cyborg, which is awesome in itself, but she’s also a strong female protagonist who knows what she wants and doesn’t take crap from anyone. Even when she does chores for her stepmother, she has an escape plan in mind. She’s far from the submissive Disney Cinderella.

The plot strayed from the original story and took it in a totally new direction. And the ending was far from happily ever after. In fact, this is the first book in a series and it provided a cliffhanger that got me excited to read the next book, Scarlett, in 2013.