A Cinderella retelling where she’s a cyborg. A freaking cyborg! Yea, that’s all I really needed to know to want to read this novel. And for the most part, after hearing that, I pretty much assumed I was going to at least get a mild enjoyment out of this novel. However, there was nothing mild about how much I enjoyed and loved Cinder.

This review will be pretty much me fangirling, because I really did find this novel to be just fanfreakingtastic. There was nothing that I truly disliked about this story.


Cinder revolves around, shockingly, Cinder, a cyborg mechanic living in a society where cyborgs are below second-class citizens. She lives with her stepmother, Adri, and two stepsisters - Pearl and Peony. Like in the original Cinderella story, Cinder meets a prince. A dashing, kind, wonderful prince - Prince Kai. She and he forge a friendship and a mutual attraction towards each other, but...of course, nothing is simple and a happily ever after just doesn’t seem to be in the cards for the two of them.


I absolutely loved Cinder as a main character. I thought she was strong-willed and pretty independent, and although normally I don’t care for insta-love or instant attraction, because this is a retelling where in the original that did occur, it didn’t bug me all that much. That, or I just really liked this story, so my issues with insta-love were overridden.

I thought that Prince Kai was a great character. Although, I think some of his decisions were naive, I understood the sacrifices he was/is going to have to make in Cinder and in future novels for his country.

And then there’s Queen Levana...I just wanted to pulverize her, and I really hope that Cinder gets a chance to do just that in the later books...well, most likely in the final novel, Winter. But I can wish for a quick demise of the Lunar Queen, hopefully in Scarlet.

All of the minor characters of the story were well written. From the bitch stepmother, to the adorably sweet Peony, just great. And then there was Iko, the fantastically outspoken android. Her friendship with Cinder was truly well written and enjoyable to read.


As is the case in a lot of first novels, Cinder has world building that helped me understand the background (or some anyway) of what was going on in Cinder’s world. Because I thoroughly enjoy most world building, I didn’t find anything wrong with learning about this futuristic world, and I definitely didn’t think it was over done.


Cinder is the first novel in a series, and because I knew that going in, I assumed this novel wouldn’t wrap up in a tidy bow, and I was right. I’m looking forward to getting Scarlet from my local library and continuing this story as soon as possible.

I would absolutely recommend this novel to any of my friends. It was a quick, interesting novel, and I just loved every minute I spent reading Cinder. Seriously, give it a shot.