Cinder by Marissa Meyer. A Review.

In all honesty, I had not read the "back cover blurb" for this book when I began reading it. It was recommended to me by my trusted friends who always find great books to read. So, right on the first (and great attention grabbing) sentence when I discovered Cinder was a cyborg, well I went back and read that back cover blurb. Needless to say--even the blurb drew me in quickly (I love it when they do that). Of course, after that I had to discover this futuristic world of fairy tales.

What I love about this book is the unique idea Meyer had for Cinder. A Cinderella Cyborg. That's not something you see everyday! Meyer did a wonderful job of merging the classic Cinderella story with cyborgs and technology. She wrote in a way that made you feel for Cinder, that made you sympathetic toward the demeaning treatment of her evil Stepmother about her cyborg status. Meyer brought out the strength that every Cinderella has through Cinder, telling us that not only characters in a book, but we as readers can do hard things.

That's one of my favorite morals that comes from any Cinderella story--We can do hard things.

I feel that Meyer's did a fantastic job with Prince Charming, or should I say Kai. He has the quality and strength of anyone's fantasy prince. He isn't arrogant, but open and kind. I love that he is willing to do anything for his people, even if the price is costly. Though he is not perfect like our Disney version (nor should he be...), he is so much better in the fact that despite Cinder's heritage, he is still willing to aid her (whether he realizes it or not).

I also have to congratulate Marissa Meyer on her ability of creating a futuristic world and describing it with excellent prose. Word count matters a lot when one is writing a novel, and sometimes as an author, it gets exciting to start spilling out every little fact about a new world. Yet, Meyer didn't do that. Yes she described her world, (obviously) but I enjoyed the fact that she trusted me, as the reader, to create the world in my own head without beating in every little detail through long and lengthy paragraphs.

All in all, Five of out Five for me. If you love fairy tales and sci-fi, you just discovered the perfect book for you!