In the book Cinder by Marissa Meyer, the story takes place in the future, following sixteen-year-old cyborg Linh Cinder who lives in New Beijing with her stepmother Linh Adri and stepsisters Linh Peony and Linh Pearl. The story is loosely based on the classic tale Cinderella. Cinder is a mechanic who earns all the money in the Linh household and is still treated like an android or less than a human being.
One day when Cinder and her faulty android Iko are working in the shop, they get a visit from the Prince of the Commonwealth (or Earth). He has a faulty android that is malfunctioning and needs fixing. The main antagonist is the evil Queen Levana of Luna (or the moon) who manifested a disease called Letumosis (or the plague) and allegedly killed her niece, Princess Celene, sixteen years ago by setting fire to her nursery. As the plague has taken the Emperor of the Commonwealth, Prince Kai must step up and take his place as Emperor of the Commonwealth and hopefully find Princess Celene before he must be wedded to the dreaded Queen Levana. Cinder’s sister Peony falls victim to Letumosis and Adri volunteers Cinder as a tribute to try and find a cure. While being tested, Cinder and Kai cross paths once again, the mechanic and the prince uncover the bloody history of Queen Levana as they race against time.
Cinder is the first installment in a four-part series (plus two more companions books) called The Lunar Chronicles that I couldn’t put down. It was the perfect amount of adventure, romance, sci-fi, and comedy. It was the first dystopian series I read and it was great because it started my obsession with the genre. Overall Cinder was actually my least favorite book of the series, because of all the exposition and boring parts that hyped the bigger reveals and plot twists in the other three books. So if you choose to read Cinder, I promise that no matter how painfully boring it is, it gets so much better. If you don’t like the series after reading the second book (Scarlet) then you don’t have to read the rest of the series. If you read Cinder without at least trying Scarlet ⬇️
Anyways, tell me how you like the series in the comments, and don’t forget to rate it as well!