Cinder Review

First off, let me say that this cover is completely awesome. I was intrigued by the concept of the book, so I picked it up off the shelf.

Cinder Synopsis
Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, the 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.

The Verdict
I would say that overall, this is a solid read, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes a good cyborg story, but this book wasn't something I would consider to be absolutely amazing by any means. The plot was interesting, but there was nothing driving me to get to the end of the book. This book took me almost a week to get through. I don't have a lot of reading time, but believe me, when there's a book I like I will make time for it. This one though was just kind of there.

One thing that really irked me about it was that it had this huge secret that anyone could see coming from the first third of the book, and it was sort of annoying that it never even occurred to any of the characters until the end of a book. Don't get me wrong, a twist at the end is nice, but not when you see it coming a mile away and it's not even that twisty.

Kudos though to the author for giving the classic Cinderella fairy tale a more female-empowering premise and protaganist. And even more kudos for the cliff hanger ending that has most likely convinced me to read the sequel.

Overall a good read, but nothing all that special.