Title: Cinder

Author: Marissa Meyer

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

Publication Date: January 2012

Genre: Young Adult Fiction

Series or Stand Alone: Series, Book One

Synopsis can be found here.

Review: 
Why haven’t you read this yet?

Cinderella gets a major makeover in this futuristic and heartwarming tale. 
Cinder is adopted by a nice man and taken home to live with his wife and two daughters. But then the plague hits, the man dies and Cinder is left with her step-mom and two step-sisters. Think you know the story yet? I don’t think so.

Cinder is a cyborg mechanic, her only pleasures fixing androids and spending time with her side kick Iko and nice step sister. She lives in New Beijing, minding her own business. Until one day, Prince Kai walks in and needs her help in fixing an older, broken android. And then, the adventure begins.

Of course, the cover is totally eye catching and made me curious as to what was inside. But I wasn’t prepared for the awesomeness that this book contained.
Cinder is a wonderful role model. She’s smart, clever, strong and vulnerable. I love her quick wit and her compassion for her family and friends. I really lovePrice Kai as well. It is refreshing to have a nice guy be the love interest. Make no mistake- Prince Kai has a lot of personality, is charming and holds a great deal of responsibility. He’s not a flat cookie cutter kind of guy. Their relationship grows naturally and never seems forced.

New Beijing isan incredibly unique setting. Between the mixture of cultures and the additional Lunar people, I wished I could see New Beijing for real, maybe as some theme park in Southern California. That would be awesome. The mysterious Lunar people added another layer of danger and once the story wraps back around, the aHa! moment is fun and exciting.
I don’t want to give too much away. I didn’t know where the book was going so the surprises really made me want to keep reading.

Overall, a fun and creative retelling of Cinderella. I can’t wait to read Scarlet, book two.

Author Interview with Marissa Meyer!

Have you always had aspirations of being a writer?
Yes, ever since I was a little kid. As soon as I realized that the books I loved so much were the creations of real people—and that it could be a real job—I knew that’s what I wanted to do.

What was the last book you read?
52 Reasons to Hate My Father by Jessica Brody. It was so much fun, and also very thoughtful and heart-warming. (It also has an amazing book trailer that everyone should go watch – it’s like a movie preview!)

Kai is such a warm and down to earth character, especially for a Prince. And Adri is a deeply angry and lonely step-mother. Which character was the hardest to write?
I would say Kai was the most difficult because my brain kept wanting to force him to be something he really wasn’t. When I first started writing this book, I had it in my head that Kai and Cinder would have a love/hate, Pride & Prejudice type love story, for which Kai would have to be arrogant and something of a jokester, but that just wasn’t him. Once I finally stopped forcing him to be what I thought he should be, then his compassionate, strong, somewhat-sarcastic character started to shine through.
Adri was difficult at the beginning, too, just because I hadn’t yet figured out what had made her so cruel and hateful. Once I gave some thought to her past and how she came to be the guardian of Cinder, then her motivations became clear. She was a lot easier to write after that.

Cinder’s cover is really unique and eye catching. The illustration of the bright red shoe and the mechanical workings underneath make it stand out from other covers. Do you buy a book based on its cover?
It’s impossible not to be affected by a cover in some way—for good or bad. There have been books that I bought based on the cover and ended up being very disappointed in, and others that I never would have chosen because of terrible covers, but maybe a friend recommended it and I ended up loving it. I love Cinder’s cover (and Scarlet’s!) and am so lucky to have my publisher’s creative genius behind them.

Cinder experiences a lot of heartbreak both before the novel opens and as the events unfold throughout. But there is still a lot of humor and lighthearted moments, especially between her, Peony and Iko. Was it difficult to balance the grim world and the lively characters?
The lighthearted moments tend to come pretty easily. Cinder and I share a sense of humor, and Iko is such a flamboyant and hilarious character that I can always count on her to roll in and say something awesome. Creating a balance between the grim and the lively wasn’t something I did intentionally, it just came about from creating characters that I adore.

How do you like your potato?
Mashed. With lots of butter. (Or if it’s a sweet potato, then sweet potato fries.)

If you weren’t a writer, what would you be?
An aspiring writer.

Do you have a favorite literary crush?
Mr. Darcy! You just can’t beat him.

What do you do when you’re not writing?
I read an awful lot and on the weekends my husband and I go to a lot of estate sales and antique stores. We also love roadtrips, which generally consist of baseball games, wineries, and stumbling into insanely creepy Bates-motel-like inns at 2:00 in the morning because we can’t keep our eyes open anymore and this is the last town for 80 miles. Yeah, we know how to live it up.

Your next book, Scarlet, comes out in February, continuing The Lunar Chronicles series. This new story is about Little Red Riding Hood. With two more books after that, how did you pick which fairy tale characters to become part of this world?
When I first started imagining a series of futuristic fairy tales, I made a list of my favorite tales and started brainstorming neat sci-fi twists I could give to them. These four stories (Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White) quickly rose to the top. Not only did I have lots of ideas for each individual story, but as I brainstormed and plotted, the tales started growing together into one continuous arc, with my cyborg Cinderella caught in the middle of it all

Thank you Marissa for stopping by!

You can follow Marissa on Twitter @Marissa_Meyer or check out her website
And yes, you can win a SIGNED Copy of Cinder!

Just fill out the rafflecopter form below! US residents only please!

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Thank you so much for stopping by and Happy Reading!