A forbidden romance.

A deadly plague.

Earth's fate hinges on one girl . . .

CINDER, a gifted mechanic in New Beijing, is also a cyborg. She's reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's sudden illness. But when her life becomes entwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she finds herself at the centre of a violent struggle between the desires of an evil queen - and a dangerous temptation.

Cinder is caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal. Now she must uncover secrets about her mysterious past in order to protect Earth's future.

This is not the fairytale you remember. But it's one you won't forget.

Our futuristic world isn’t as nearly perfect as we hope it will be. 126 years after World War IV, world is fighting lethal disease called letumosis. Aside from thousands of people dying from letumosis, there is also a threat from the Lunars - ruthless people who inhabit Moon and are leader by terrible Queen Levana who wishes to destroy Earth. The only hope to get Levana from the Luna’s throne is long lost princess Selena.
Young cyborg Cinder is suddenly found all alone in that mess and is about to discover some rather shocking secrets about herself and those around her.

I enjoyed reading this book, but the plot was kind of slow. Writing style is all right and the book is easy to read. But until the very end there wasn’t anything happening except few plague scenes, a lot of political talking and some tension between Kai and Cinder.

As for two main characters I liked them both. Cinder is strong and brave and deals with so much pain. She is used to being blamed for everything and has few people who care about her, and all of them were taken away. I hope she and Kai get their happy ending eventually. *spoiler* I kind of predicted she is Queen Selena from the beginning of the story so that wasn’t much if a shock to me.
I liked the concept of recreating Cinderella in modern world and am interested in further development of this story.

Meyer has a lot of talent in writing retellings. There is just the right amount of classical fairy tales and modern elements of young adult sci-fi novels.

I think it has a lot of potential and could be more interesting than this first book.